


Count to Ten

by goldxblooded



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Slow Burn, time skip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-02-14 07:19:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 44,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2182848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldxblooded/pseuds/goldxblooded
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At age 26, Steve stops denying the fact that he loves James Buchanan Barnes. By then, it's too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. where there's smoke, there's fire.

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Every Door Opens](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1577855) by [notoska](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notoska/pseuds/notoska). 



> This first chapter will be set from Steve's first time meeting Bucky until Bucky ships off to Europe. Just a note, the story will be told from Steve's POV only. I switch between second and third narrative often, but just keep in mind it will always be in Steve's POV.
> 
> This work was greatly inspired by AO3 author notoska. If you have time and a desire to read an achingly heartbreaking Stucky fanfiction, please go read notoska's Every Door Opens. It is haunting and beautiful and is an amazing read.
> 
> With that being said, thank you and enjoy. :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You find a beautiful boy crafted with a piece of the sun and a drop of spring who is willing to bleed for you. You find a beautiful boy who is willing to break for you, so that you can remain stable. He will let his broken bones be a garden around you, so that nothing can ever hurt you. He holds you and you know that this is where you belong in the world. You can finally stop searching and it feels like the sky isn’t heavy anymore. Because this beautiful boy is willing to hold it up for you. He smiles and you know that there is something important about him.

Summer days Steve found himself trying to find out where he belonged in the world. The orphanage was a cage of broken kids and abandoned hopes. He spent most of his time away from it, not being able to accept the fact that he was broken and abandoned as well. You’re never really able to face things like that, not if you want to keep going.

He wanders off into the streets of Hell’s Kitchen, skin swallowing hours of afternoon sunshine. He draws in the sketchbook his pop left behind, he draws any and everything. Most of the pages are filled with pencil marks in the shape of his ma’. He only has a pencil, so slowly, he forgets the color of her eyes. You test your memory, to see how much of her is left inside you. There isn’t a single day you don’t think of her, but slowly, you forget how to shade the shape of her lips.

That’s when you know you have to move on.

The weight of the August sun was always too heavy, it sparked something inside the kids, making them restless. Big kids liked to pick on the smaller ones, and orphans were simple targets because they had no parents to run to. The first time Steve ever saw one of the kids from the orphanage being bullied, there wasn’t even a thread of a doubt in him. He ran as fast as his skinny legs would let him and he’d stand right in front of the bully, saying words that were bigger than his throat could carry.

They laughed at him but he didn’t back down.

The bullies planted fists onto his skin, bruises blooming like gardens across his flesh.

They push you down. You stand up after every time. You taste copper in your mouth and pain in your bones, but better you than the other kids. The concrete is soaked with summer sun and vandalized with spilled blood. The bully punches, the asphalt scrapes, and your body breaks.

Eventually the older boys abandon him too, after their knuckles are stained with too much of his blood, after they get bored of hitting something that refuses to go down. The orphan kid thanks him, but Steve can see the shame in his eyes. He’d bruise and bleed, but at least this way, the orphans didn’t lose their pocket money. They’d already lost so much.

Soon, summer days Steve found himself in the crevasse of some alley, in the valley of some trash can.

Your body tries to tell you ‘run away’, but your heart screams ‘you have to fight.’ Because you do have too. If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.

 

* * *

 

James Buchanan Barnes.

He was a storm of pale green eyes and messy brown hair.

Steve met Bucky as summer began to melt away, leaving room for autumn to breathe. He was in some alley, surrounded by a couple of older boys. They tried to tell him his mom left him ‘cause he was too pathetic of a kid. His ma’ died because of sickness, but he’d never tell the bullies that. They stopped picking on the other orphans, Steve was much more fun.

It was better this way.

“Your mom never loved you.” They said.

But he knew she did, he knew because her last words were ‘I love you’ and her last tears bled onto his fingers in the shape of her broken heart. She loved him and cried because she couldn’t love him anymore.

“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” He says, jaw aching, teeth red with blood. The words spill off his teeth because no one insulted his ma’.

They hit him again and stars bloom across his eyelashes. He’s never seen stars before.

The boys crowd around him, taking their turns in pushing Steve around, punching and kicking him in places that were already purple and red. They hit him again and again.

And then, like a piece of lightning, a boy with messy brown hair walks in with his fists raised. He knocks one of the bullies square on his face. They quickly divert their attention to the new kid. Messy hair didn’t even waver, he stood tall. They got in a few punches, but the boy had rivers in his bones, too quick to be caught. He fought and beat every single one of them. They ran with a ‘you’ll pay for this Barnes’.

The stars collapse and are replaced with something even brighter.

“You alright?” He says, and Steve see’s the grey dust in his green eyes. A kaleidoscope of colors, and he wants to draw them in every sketchbook he owns so that he never forgets it.

“Yea. Could’ve taken them down on my own though.”

The boy scoffs. “Yea, I’m sure you could champ.” Steve frowns at the sarcasm. “James Buchanan Barnes.” He sticks out a hand, blood still on it. “Everyone calls me Bucky, though.”

Steve takes it in his own small palms. “Steve Rogers.” The boy is warm.

“How about we get you cleaned up?” He smiles.

He smiles and you wonder why it sparks something inside of you.

“Yea. Yea, okay.”

He was broken, yes, but now .. at least he wasn’t abandoned.

 

* * *

 

Bucky’s fingers are calloused and Steve can’t help but wonder why.

They run across his cheek, a cloth soaking up his bleeding cuts. He sits on the toilet seat of Bucky’s bathroom, first aid kit open and the contents scattered around his feet. He winces and sucks in a breath each time the antiseptic washes his wound.

“Jeez, stop moving before this ends up in your eye.”

“You’re pressing too hard.”

“Stop being a baby.”

“I’m not a baby, jerk.”

“You are. Punk.”

Bucky looks down at him and smiles, the bathroom light pooling shadows gently under his jawbone.

“So why were ya in that alley anyways?” Bucky asks, his eyes focused on the cut on Steve’s lip.

“Bullies. Always thinkin’ they can pick on little kids. If I don’t stand up for them, no one will.” Bucky seems to be amused by this, the corner of his lip quirking upwards.

“You sure are brave seeing as _you’re_ one of those little kids.”

Steve furrows his eyebrows. “Am not. I’m twelve.”

The boy smiles and you can tell that there’s something important about him. That there's more than just gold in his skin, and there's more than just warmth in his eyes. There’s something else and you want to find out what it is.

“Oh yea? Well I’m thirteen. And look how big I am compared to you!”

Steve ducks from the boy’s tender hands and stands up. “You aren't one ah’ them bullies are you?”

Bucky frowns, pushing Steve back down onto the toilet seat. “No I ain't one them bullies. I’m saying it’s cool that you did that. Takes real guts to stand up to good fer nothing bullies like that. Now stay still so I can patch you up.” He does, because there’s something about Bucky he can’t shake.

“So where do ya live?”

He doesn’t want to say at first, because boys like Bucky always avoid boys like Steve. And he didn’t want Bucky to avoid him. He was the first to look twice at Steve. And he ignored the thin skin and hollow bones.

“The orphanage down the street.”

Because you can’t lie to a boy like Bucky. You can’t lie when his knuckles bleed for you, when his bones creak for you, when he saves you from bleeding onto the concrete. You can’t lie, when his fingers press against your cheek, and you can feel the swirl of his tips, the warmth of his heart. You can’t lie, when his eyes roam on your worn flesh and haunted face, and he doesn’t look away, there is no pity. You can’t lie to a boy like that.

“Well, Steve Rogers from the orphanage down the street, I hereby declare you as James Bucky Barnes’s new friend. And any friend of mine don’t take crap from bullies. The next time someone is giving you a hard time, say my name, count to ten, and I’ll be there to rough ‘em up.”

You look up at this boy and you know there’s something important about him. He smiles at you and protects you, and you know that there’s something special about him.

You wonder what it is.

 

* * *

 

He finds Bucky outside the orphanage every day after that. Bucky takes him on adventures and Steve follows him wherever he goes. Bucky looks out for Steve in a way no one else has ever done before. His fists harden for Steve, his fingers soften for Steve. His tongue shouts for Steve, his lips smile for Steve.

Steve shows him his sketchbook, and Bucky looks through it for hours. He tells them they are the most beautiful things he has ever seen and Steve can’t help but think the same of Bucky. Bucky gives him pencils and charcoals and sketchbooks and paints and Steve asks him where he gets them. Bucky doesn’t say where or how, just why. Because he wants Steve to draw, because it’s important to him, and Steve shouldn’t lose important things. Steve can only think of Bucky when he says this.

Over time, they become attached at the hip, and one follows the other like thunder follows lightning. He  continues to defend the kids who get bullied, and the bullies continue to beat him up for it. But now, Bucky is always there, always protecting him.

People often say if you see lightning, count to ten and thunder will follow. Steve only has to count to five most of the time, and Bucky is there.

He is there and you can’t help but feel your heart swell against your ribs, because he fights for you, and he bleeds for you. And most of the time, you wish you could do the same for him. You wish your ribs were wider so that they can breathe him in, and you wish your fists were strong enough to fight for him.

You’re sad because they aren’t.

 

* * *

 

You find a boy who is made of golden skin and jade eyes that care for you, and the only thing you can think about is not letting him see you break. Because you know he will break himself to fix you, because you know he will burn his own body to keep you warm.

Steve falls ill sometime in the winter. He can feel it coming, in the weakness of his breaths and the quivers of his lungs. His skin flushes red, throat dry, and the fear of sickness is too thick to ignore. He tells Bucky he can’t see him for awhile, because he knows Bucky hates seeing him hurt.

Scarlet Fever.

He didn’t know what it was, or what it meant, but with the ways the doctor looked at him, Steve knew it was going to be bad. He spent his time in bed, throat on fire, head pounding. The nuns give him broken looks and can’t spend more than a few minutes in his presence. Through all of it, he can't help but think of Bucky. He can’t help but think of warm palms and strong shoulders.

They tell him he might not make it, but he knows if Bucky were here he would. They tell him they don’t have the money for medicine and he understands. They tell him to fight to live.

They tell you you need to fight to live. But you fight because he would want you too. You fight because even if he protects you from clenched fists and a cold winter, he can’t protect you from withered lungs and a dying heart. You fight because he would hate himself because of this. You fight because he would hate himself for not being able to save you.

Fighting turns out to not be enough, and he regrets not being able to see Bucky one last time.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up to fingers combing through his hair, and already he knows who it is. He has spent too much time familiarizing the joints of those fingers, how they are strong enough to hold up ships and gentle enough to slip through cracks.

“Buck?” His throat burns.

“Steve? Oh thank god. Steve. Look at me.” He opens his eyes and Bucky is there, messy brown hair messier than usual, pale green eyes heavy. “I-I thought you were gonna’ leave me. God, why didn’t you tell me you were sick!”

“’m sorry.” It hurts to talk but he can’t ignore him. “Where?”

“Hospital.”

“But..”

“My ma and pop are paying for it. Said they’d have to take some from my school fund, but I didn’t care. What’s school if it ain’t with you?”

You hear him sacrifice himself and there is yet another thing you owe this boy, and it hurts to know that he gives until he is empty. You want to gift him the world but it won’t fit in your fingers. You want to gift him the moon but your palms are just to small. The only thing that fits are his hands. You reach for him, and he takes it, and you hope it’s enough for now.

“No, I can’t let them do that.” Bucky tightens his grip.

“They don’t mind. They love you Steve. Please, please just let them do this. I can’t – I can’t.”

His eyes glisten like morning dew and Steve has never seen Bucky cry before. “Okay, Bucky, okay.”

_Just don’t cry for me._

“If you ever hide something like this from me again I swear I’ll never forgive you.” His thumb rubs circles into Bucky’s skin. He’s scared the boy will move away, but he doesn’t, he grips harder so that their heartbeats bruise together. “I’m here for you, until the end of the line.”

“I know. I’m sorry Buck. I just didn’t want you to see me like this.”

“So you’d leave me? Just like that?” Steve has never seen him so sad before, and it hurts him inside.

“Never. I’m with you ‘till the end of the line.”

Bucky leans over and kisses him on the forehead. He doesn’t even look around before he does it, just sheds his lips like rose petals right on Steve’s forehead.

“Sheesh, you’re burning up.”

“’m okay now.”

“The hell you are.” Steve feels the warmth of the sheets where Bucky’s arm rests and wonders how long he has been here. How long he has waited for Steve’s eyes to open. How worried he must’ve been.

“Bucky .. there’s something I should’ve told you.”

“What is it?” He looks suddenly worried.

“I-I get sick all the time. It happens every time it gets cold out. My immune system is crap. I should’ve told you when we first met.”

“Why? You think it’d get rid of me? God, you’re stupid sometimes. Another world war couldn’t stop me from me from being next to you. I told you already, just count to ten.”

“I’m not stupid, jerk.”

“You are, punk. Ten, okay?”

“Okay, Buck. Okay.”

You hope he’s right. You hope he stays by your side no matter what, no matter what happens on this Earth, no matter what threatens to tear you apart. You hope that this boy, who has found treasures in your cracked heart, stays by your side forever. You hope that the end of the line is nonexistent.

You hope, but there’s a part of you that knows that that will never happen.

 

* * *

 

He get’s much worse before he get’s better. Rheumatic fever. Heart palpitations. Sinusitis. Colds.

Mr. and Mrs. Barnes take him into their house, saying that he is like a son to them. That anyone that can make Bucky be good was welcome under their roof. They made it sound so easy and simple, that they weren’t taking in a weak and sick boy who needed constant medical care. They never batted an eyelid, only smiled in his presence. Mrs. Barnes homeschooled him and Mr. Barnes made sure he had whatever he needed. They don’t question him and they don’t accept his apologies.

Winter passes with Bucky right by Steve’s side. He forces Steve to eat, take his medicine, drink water, rest plenty. When Steve wakes up, Bucky is there, and when he goes to sleep, Bucky is there. Eventually, he gets tired of watching Bucky struggle to stay awake beside him, he just asks him to sleep together. Bucky doesn’t even question it, and Steve knows the boy will give him whatever he asks for.

So they sleep together, Bucky hugging Steve tight to his chest, the cold weather barely a threat to their warmth. Bucky rubs his back when his lungs cough, Bucky holds his hand just to make sure he is still there.

You spend so long without a home, grateful that you finally find one. In this house, where everyone loves you. You hate to think that maybe one day you will leave this place. But then you realize that the arms you are in, the warmth you are marinated in, that is your home. He is your home. And he will never leave.

 

* * *

 

One morning he wakes up to find a dozen flowers on his lap. They are each beautiful and whole, not a single petal ripped or broken. Roses.

“Do ya like ‘em?” Bucky asks, leaning against the doorway.

He smiles. “They’re beautiful.” He knows better than to ask Bucky where he got them, because he would just get ‘don’t worry about it’ in reply. Bucky always tells him to never worry about it. Money comes from unknown places and sometimes he can see the fatigue in Bucky’s eyes. But he doesn’t ask because Bucky tells him not to.

He spends his time drawing in a sketchbook. When he runs out of pages for his pencil to bleed on, a new one magically appears on his lap the next morning. When his pencils become short and dull, a new one always appears on his lap the next morning.

Whatever he needs, Bucky provides.

“Thanks,” he says.

“Don’t worry about it.” Is all he gets.

You take and he gives. Maybe one day, you can give him something too.

 

* * *

 

Girls swoon when he breathes, they flock when he laughs. Bucky sees plenty of girls and each and every one of them enjoy his company. He dates and he plays around, he falls in and out of love. Bucky comes to him and his lips tell him about a new girl he has eyes for. He tells Steve about the dates, the kisses, he tells him everything.

The boy you want to yourself tells you about the lips of a dame he wants to taste, and you hate him for it. His eyes are a different color now, and you hate that they change for someone besides you. He spends more time chasing skirts and dancing with soft skin, and less time with you. You suddenly miss the way he watches your fingers dance as you draw. You suddenly miss the way he holds your palms when he is scared you are about to leave. You miss him, but never tell him, because you will give him whatever he wants. You will be silent if he is loud, you will be reassuring if his is unsure, you will be empty if he is full.

“And she has this laugh that makes birds sing, I swear it Steve.”

“I believe you Buck. She sounds like a real winner.” He draws Bucky, but Buck doesn’t know it. If he can’t have him here in flesh, then he will have him here in graphite.

“I hope so. Going dancing with her tonight.”

“Make sure to-“

“Treat her right. I know Steve, ya don’t have to remind me.” He smiles because it’ll make Bucky happy, and because he needs to know that Steve is happy too. Even when he is disappointed.

“Why don’t you come too? Find a pretty dame for you.”

He chuckles. _I don’t want a pretty dame._ “No thanks. I have things to worry about. Like _school_ maybe?”

Bucky ruffles his hair and smiles. “Yea yea yea, okay. But one day I’m going to find a pretty girl and you’re gonna be jealous. Don’t come to me and whine.”

He says things he doesn’t know are true. He jokes and you can’t help but cringe at the irony of his words. You hope he finds a pretty girl, because it’ll make him happy. You will be jealous, yes, but not of him, no. You’ll be jealous of the girl in his arms, because they won’t be around you at night anymore.

“I won’t jerk. Now go, or you’ll be late.”

“Yes, _mom._ Hey um, I might or might not be home tonight. Don’t wait up?”

“Yea .. yea okay.”

And suddenly he can’t help but hate how much his heart hurts to hear these things. But as long as Bucky is happy, so is Steve. As long as Bucky is okay, so is Steve. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Where there is Bucky, there is Steve.

“You alright?” Bucky asks.

“Yea, I’m good. Jus’ tired.”

He looks at you and you can tell he knows you’re lying. Because you never lie to a boy like Bucky, and he knows it. He is bothered when you lie, because you don’t ever do it, but when you do, he knows not to ask why. He trusts you like that, and you feel guilty because of it.

“Okay, I’m going then.” He leans over and kisses Steve on his forehead, and Steve can’t help but hate that those lips will be somewhere entirely different tonight.

 

* * *

 

Sooner or later, Steve has a whole book full of Bucky. That book turns into two, and two turns into three. He doesn’t show them to anyone, keeps it tucked away under the mattress.

He attends art class and the instructor tells them to draw the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen. He says that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that everyone has their own vision of beauty. He says that that can be a place, a family, a thing, a season, a lover. Steve pretends he only hears the first four. He draws fireworks at the bay. He draws the Barnes family. He draws twelve flowers. He draws summer in Brooklyn.

In each and every one of these, Bucky is there and Steve knows it.

 

* * *

 

When the world war finally takes light, there is an uneasy flurry.

Steve and Bucky both plan to sign up.

Bucky tells him he doesn’t want him too, tells him it’s too dangerous. He has that shimmer in his eyes, the one that says ‘please, steve, please’. His palm cradles Steve’s shoulder, his lips curl around warnings that Steve is too familiar with.

“Then what about you? Why is it okay that you can go and I can’t?”

“Because-“

“Because I’m me. Weak and skinny and good fer nothing. Sick and stupid Steve. I understand Bucky. But there’s a war out there and they need all the men they can get.”

“Steve, you know  I don’t mean it like that-“

“Of course you do, Buck. You don’t have to baby me anymore, you don’t have to pretend anymore. I know I’m skinny and useless, but I won’t let that stop me.”

“Steve, please.”

“Why won’t you let me!” He yells.

“Because I don’t want to lose you!” He yells back.

“And I don’t want to lose you! But you’re not letting that stop you now are you!”

You yell because he makes you angry. Because he will give you the stars if you asked him for it. Because he will hand you the sky if you asked him for it. And now that you truly want something, he won’t give it to you, because he knows it will take you away from him. You want him to trust you, and you know he will. He will trust you, he just won’t lose you. You don’t tell him that he won’t be here if you count to ten. Because he will be across the ocean, fighting a war for the both of you. You know he fights for you, and he will fight enough for the both of you.

You’re going to wait until he leaves and you’re going to count to ten. Just to see that he won’t be there to catch you. You tell him you’re big enough, that you don't need him to protect you. You tell him he doesn’t need to pretend anymore. But you’re going to count to ten anyways. Just to see that he won’t be there.

 

* * *

 

Bucky gets it, Steve doesn’t.

They both knew it would happen this way, but neither speak of it.

He leaves for training with only a kiss to Steve’s forehead. Steve spends the rest of his time trying to ignore the void that rests on his heart. He draws Bucky and sometimes he can’t sleep at night. He goes to the recruiter’s office and he gets denied. He misses Bucky and he wonders if Bucky misses him.

Bucky was a storm of pale green eyes and messy brown hair. He came in with fists raised, not knowing that he would march right into the confines of Steve’s heart. Falling into the crevasse of that alley, fighting those bullies, that was the best mistake Steve has ever made and will ever make. Because Bucky found him, and he bled for him. And if Steve needed to break a bone or two to have Bucky in his life, then he’d make that mistake a million times again.

He grew with Bucky growing right next to him, a man of beauty and strength. Steve regrets not drawing Bucky in art class, because there was no one more beautiful than Bucky, nothing was more beautiful than Bucky. He hates himself for denying that, for letting other people’s opinions affect that.

Bucky was a pillar that always stood in front of Steve. He’d protect Steve even when he couldn’t protect himself. Bucky gave until he was empty and then he gave some more. All for Steve. Only for Steve. He found a home where he never expected to find it.

And now that home was going to leave him.

He can only imagine how it will feel to not know where he belongs again.

This summer will be hard.

 

* * *

 

The day Bucky returns from basic training, Steve is in an alley. Some big guy kicking Steve around, Steve refusing to go down. It was like meeting Bucky all over again.

It was funny, because he said Bucky’s name in the middle of the bashing, and the bully thought he said ‘fucker’, so he continued to beat him. And then Steve started counting the punches to his face.

_1.._

_2.._

_3.._

_4.._

_5.._

And then Bucky was there. Like thunder and lightning.

He was there fist raised, throat yelling, eyes furious. He beat the bully up to a pulp before shoving him to the mouth of the alley. The moment the bully is gone, Bucky is rushing to his side, arms curling around his tiny body.

“You came.” He says, tasting copper in between his teeth. Everything hurt, except where Bucky’s arms were holding him. He laid there, bleeding and bruised. Blood coming out of his nose and his mouth, he probably looked like crap. But still, Bucky was there, holding him in his arms, and he looked at Steve like he was the most beautiful thing in the world.

“I’ll always find you, Steve.” He says, not a single tear in his eyes. Blood on his knuckle.

“You don’t have to Bucks.” Steve groans, feeling Buck’s warmth seep deeper than any bruise on his skin.

“No, I will. Always.” He mumbles, just loud enough for Steve to hear. “Whenever you need help, fucking say my name and count to ten. I promise I will be there Steve. Always. Till the end of the line.”

“Okay, Bucks, okay.” And the man kisses his forehead.

And there, laying broken and bruised in Bucky’s arms, Steve never felt so complete before.

You find a beautiful boy crafted with a piece of the sun and a drop of spring who is willing to bleed for you. You find a beautiful boy who is willing to break for you, so that you can remain stable. He will let his broken bones be a garden around you, so that nothing can ever hurt you. He holds you and you know that this is where you belong in the world. You can finally stop searching and it feels like the sky isn’t heavy anymore. Because this beautiful boy is willing to hold it up for you. He smiles and you know that there is something important about him.

You find him.

You love him.

You lose him.

 


	2. a ghost who has left his grave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He has saved you so many times you do not have enough fingers to count them. You have fallen and he has skinned his knees to catch you. You have drowned and he has offered the air in his lungs so you can breathe. You have cried and he has wet his skin to catch your sadness. He has saved you so many times and you had so much to repay him. Now, you may never get the chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't wait until tomorrow! :)
> 
> This chapter will be post CA:TWS. There will be Steve remembering some events from the past, but the time period is after the helicarrier crash. THAT being said, you will have to have knowledge of the movie TWS, otherwise this will make little to no sense. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy, let me know if there are any mistakes. And I know the story might be a little hard to get use to, as I switch from third to second person. Just know it will always be in reference to Steve.

Bucky finally leaves for war.

Steve gets the super serum.

Erskine gets shot by hydra.

Captain America is born.

Steve saves Bucky and team.

Steve and Bucky fight.

The 107th fight.

Bucky falls.

Bucky  _falls._

_Bucky dies._

Steve dies.

He fights.

Red Skull

Dies.

Plane.

Crashes.

Steve

Dies.

Sleeps.

Wakes.

Ice.

Melts.

 

* * *

 

Seventy years pass and Steve wakes.

Time passes slower. The leaves change colors, they fall like feathers from wings, and then new ones grow to replace them. Summer breathes and dies, seasons circulate like blood, blood circulates like seasons.

It is always winter for Steve.

Bucky died and took the warmth with him. Time passes but Steve feels like he’s been in the same spot for seventy years.

He fights. He’s a machine that never rusts, a machine that bleeds instead. He wakes up from a grave that is inside of him. He cannot run from it. He goes on missions for SHIELD. He leads the Avengers. He fights and fights until his bones bend. And then he fights until they break. He keeps going, keeps fighting for things no one else will fight for. He fights to keep his hands occupied, to keep his mind empty. The others worry for him, but he fights to keep the grave buried inside him. If he cannot run from it, he will keep it inside him. The wounds remind him he is alive, the exhaustion keeps him going, the memories keep him lucid.

It’s hard to be alive when everything you've ever lived for has died, when the only thing you lived for has died. You look over your shoulder expecting messy brown hair and pale green eyes, you pick up a pencil but it doesn’t feel right in your hands, you stare at the sun but don’t feel its rays. Everything changes, but nothing changes at all.

You learn to live without him. Because he would want you to fight, because he would hate you if you threw your life away. He would hate you if you gave up. Your life is his trophy, he has fought to keep it in tact, he has bled to keep it together, he has died to keep it alive. You know this, you live so that he lives with you, so that his blood was not wasted for nothing. He is in your skin, he is in your heart. He has already died once, he will not die again.

 

* * *

 

After the helicarriers crash into each other, after he wakes up from the Potomac river, Steve spends hours watching the footage. The footage of the fight.

He has asked Tony to hack into the systems. He has asked Tony to sharpen every single pixel, to slow down every single second, to zoom into every single frame. He has watched the footage so many times it has burned itself into his eyelids. He watches it backwards and forwards, the pixels arrange in his head before they arrange on the screen.

He memorizes it. He can repeat it second by second.

There, on the helicarrier, is James Bucky Barnes. Alive. Breathing. Bleeding. Flesh. Bone.

The wounds Bucky left on Steve weren’t enough. Bruises deep in his body, deeper than any one has ever anchored, deeper than any bully. He bled and bled, skin torn open from a metal fist. Bullets in his chest shot by a man with pale green eyes. His bones, broken like glass in his skin, crushed by fingers that once healed them. His body ripped open by a man who tried so hard to keep it together.

These wounds litter his body, but they aren’t enough. They aren’t enough evidence. The winter soldier has written his name on Steve’s skin, written it in bruises and cuts. The same hand that has held him together, tears him apart.

It takes hours to heal, and the only traces of Bucky slowly fade away. It isn’t enough.

So he watches the footage.

Bucky is there. But then he isn’t.

A ghost.

You never imagine it was possible. He has haunted you. In your dreams, you see his screaming face. This is the only place you ever see his face, this is the only way you never forget the color of his skin. This is the only way you sleep, so that you see his face. You wake up screaming because you’ve seen his ghost. It has happened over and over. But you never imagine seeing him while awake. It is impossible. That is why when the wounds he paints on your skin disappears, you think that he was never really there.

But you watch the footage. You watch the way his bones move, the way his skin bleeds the sun. And you know it’s him. You have spent too much time memorizing that body, and you know its him no matter how many times you watch the footage. He is alive.

Flesh. Bone.

James Bucky Barnes is alive.

 

* * *

 

The moment Steve is healed he is searching. The other Avengers do not argue with him, they know how long he has waited. They know whose name he screams at night, they have all been there to calm him. They have watched him visit an empty grave in a Brooklyn cemetery, they know what roses he buys. No one says it, but they have read the files, they know who Bucky Barnes is – was, they know who he is to Steve. They know how he died, and they know how he lived.

They know not to stop Steve.

Pockets of Hydra are forced to surface now that SHIELD is gone. In the chaos, other forces rise as well, taking advantage of the disarray. Fantastic Four, Spiderman, and X-Men are all working, each having their own battles to fight.

The Avengers go through remaining Hydra forces. Some battles are simple, others are tough. There are too many bases to attack, so many hidden forces, each provide a heavy weight for the Avengers to handle. It is hard. They seldom escape without a scratch.

But they fight. They collect data from the databases. They incarcerate those who surrender, they eliminate those who do not. The fights anchor into his team mates, they are tiring and unrelenting. He forces himself to slow down, he has to remind himself that victories aren’t trophies. You do not collect them, they are just reminders that you have not failed yet. There will always be battles to fight. They will not stop until all of the bases are gone.

One head is cut, two grow in its place.

Steve looks for Bucky in each of these places, hoping to find a ghost who has left his grave.

You expect to find him in every corner you turn. You need him next to you but you won’t count to ten. You fear he will not show. You need to know he is okay, but you will not call someone who does not know who you are. Your head is a storm, a mess of broken glass. You try to sort things out but escape with bleeding hands. You cannot stop thinking about how fragile he has been with you.

There is lightning, but no thunder. There is smoke, but no fire. Every corner you turn, you expect him there. Every corner you take, you are afraid he is there. You are afraid his tongue has forgotten the shape of your name.

 

* * *

 

“Jarvis, can you mute my floor please?”

“Certainly, Captain Rogers. Your floor is now muted. If you need my assistance, I will still be available.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course, Captain.”

Every night is like this. Sleep is no longer sleep. It hasn’t been for seventy years. Steve’s body faces exhaustion, super serum or not. Sleep isn’t sleep. Sleep is recharging his body, one hour a day.

Sleep is facing your nightmares, facing your demons. Facing your ghosts.

The man you live for, dies. You finish the war he fought for you. You stop the man responsible for killing him. You die, hoping that you will finally be with him again. But the plane crashes and you still wake up. Seventy years later and you are still having the same nightmare. Seventy years later and you don’t know when you are awake or dreaming. Seventy years later and you still dream the same dream. And that is the only way you remember his face now. This is the only way you can see him.

The team is tough. They haven’t given up, they are still going strong. For every hydra base that appears, Steve’s team is ready to crush it. They sleep to fight another day. Steve sleeps to compare the ghost in his dreams, to the ghost with the metal arm.

They are the same.

They are not.

 

* * *

 

It was the same dream, of course it was. It was always the same dream.

_The train._

_The side of it was ripped open, cold air pouring directly into the hallows of Steve’s chest. It was cold, so cold. It felt like broken glass was whispering across his skin. He is knocked onto the ground, the shield haphazard on the floor._

_“Bucky!”_

_You scream and you don’t want that to be the last time you say his name. You don’t want this to be the last thing he hears._

_Bucky picks up his shield, and stands there, protecting Steve cause that’s what he’s always done. He holds up the shield, he towers over Steve’s body. He is steel, he is diamond. He will break to to protect. He will sacrifice to save._

_The second gun blast fires and blows Bucky right out the train, shield left on the floor. Steve couldn’t think in time, he couldn’t get up in time, he couldn’t pick up the shield in time, it was just happening too fast. He throws the shield at the hydra agent, throws it hard enough to feel earthquakes in his arm._

_When the hydra agent falls, Steve throws himself towards the opening. Bucky hangs on to the rail of the broken train. Steve scales the wall as fast as he can, all he can feel is the winter crashing into his skin, all he can hear is his blood pounding, his bones shaking in fear._

_“Hang on!”_

_You scream, knowing the man you live for is hanging on by a thread and you can’t reach him. His fists bleed for you but your bones aren’t long enough to save him. He has written your name on every inch of his joints, saying they exist for you, and all you can do is reach, hoping it is enough. There are things you want to say to him right now, but if you say them, then you are accepting the fact that you can’t save him._

_Bucky slips, his fingers fleeting and Steve can feel breaths slipping from his lungs, his heart colliding against ribcage. He climbs, he climbs but it isn’t fast enough, it isn’t fast enough. He can’t even see the look on Bucky’s face, there are tears curtained on his eyelashes blocking his view._

_“Grab my hand!”_

_You ask him to trust you, but you know he will. He trusts you more than he trusts the sun to rise in the morning. You ask him to let go and reach for you hand, and you know he will, because he’s with you until the end of the line. You trust him, but you don’t want to lose him._

_Bucky reaches, he tries but Steve is too far away. The steel of the train whines under the pressure, ready to give, but Steve can’t hear it. He was praying to god so loudly in his head, just praying for one last miracle. He was too far away. Why was he so far away?_

_The rail screams loudly and then gives, and Steve could feel every ounce of life ripped away from corners of his heart. He could feel every drop of warmth in his blood evaporate into the cold air._

_He could hear Bucky yell, he could hear Bucky scream._

_He could hear it so loud._

_It was so loud._

He wakes him up screaming.

 

* * *

 

You find him.

You love him.

You lose him.

A world war took him from you.

Bucky lied and you knew it.

 

* * *

 

A week later, they find the base Bucky was held in.

They find the base where Bucky was erased in.

It is a haunting experience.

Natasha finds the cryogenic chamber, she finds the scratches on the inside of it, Steve runs his fingers on them. Clint finds a machine, Tony tells him that it erased memories, that it erased Bucky. Thor forces the scientists to spill their secrets, they vomit those along with their lives. Sam finds the metal chair, leather straps hang off of it, a ripped mouth-guard, the place where Bucky slipped away.

Steve finds Bucky’s grave. His real grave. This is where Bucky forgot what the inside of his head looked like. This is where he forgot where his bones belonged. This is where he forgot Steve. Steve cannot bring roses here.

He stands here for a long time. In the same spot as the men who erased Bucky from this world. The Avengers do not say anything. They move around him, rounding up the remaining hydra agents. Sam stands behind him, an open palm ready to cradle his shoulder. Steve will need it.

He stares at the machinery, at the cryo tank, at the cold, stainless steel. Tools, restraints, vials, straps, needles.

You wonder how scared he was. The bravest man you know, you wonder how scared he was.

He was scared, but he was no coward. He has saved you so many times you do not have enough fingers to count them. You have fallen and he has skinned his knees to catch you. You have drowned and he has offered the air in his lungs so you can breathe. You have cried and he has wet his skin to catch your sadness. He has saved you so many times and you had so much to repay him. Now, you may never get the chance.

He has reached his arms for you, each time it was enough.

You reached your arms, hoping it would be enough.

It wasn’t.

 

* * *

 

When they get back to the tower, Bruce and Tony explain everything. Tony has run through the files, he has proofread them. Maybe he tucks away the information that will anger Steve, maybe he hides away the details that will hurt Steve. Natasha is by Steve’s side at the conference table, her leg steadies him under the wood, lightly against his, she speaks in actions. Sam sits in the chair on other other side him, his hands splayed on the mahogany, ready to catch, ready to hold. Thor lounges silently, he looks this way when thinking of Loki. Clint is perched by the window, he is always looking, always attentive. His eyes are on Steve.

Tony and Bruce stand at the head, bringing up holograms of data. Steve knows he would read this information forward and backwards until written on his heart. Maybe that is why the scientists are not near enough for him to do so. His team has seen him rewatch the helicarrier footage too many times.

“They kept him in cryo when they didn’t need him.” The image of the cryogenic chamber pops up, other readings beside it. “They woke him up when he had a mission. We know this part. He was used mainly as an assassin. He is woken up, briefed, and then afterwards he was put back to sleep.”

“That’s fucked up.” Clint says, his face scowling.

“Not even the worst of it. The bastards wiped him with this.” Tony pulls up the machine they saw in the base. “Sent electrical shocks to the part of his brain that kept memories.” Readings pop up in various floating boxes, a brain diagram appears, certain parts highlighted.

Natasha’s leg inches a little closer, she can see Steve’s tension, she can see his anger. She sees it before he can. Sam’s open hand clenches into a fist. He angers for Steve.

“Do we have any information on where he is now?” Sam asks, speaking for Steve. The words may be too heavy in his heart.

“Unfortunately, no.” Bruce frowns, taking off his glasses. “Barnes has not been at any hydra bases after project insight. That is debatable.  It's either good or bad news.”

Good being he is no longer controlled. Bad being he is gone.

Good being he is free. Bad being he has chosen to leave you.

“So what’s the move, Cap?” Tony looks at him, eyes asking much more than his mouth. His team looks at him, they all are asking the same thing. They know what he wants to say. They know he cannot say it.

They tell you the ghost you are chasing cannot be found, not unless he wants to be found. He has rivers in his bones, afterall. You have chased after him, you follow the maps he has once burned into your shoulder blades, you trace the lines in your palms trying to find some clue. You cannot find him.

You have broken pencils and left them on your nightstand, you have found your filled sketchbooks and left them next to your pillow. He does not show to replace them.

You look and you look, hoping to find him whole and okay. You look and you look, but how do you find a ghost?

How do you find someone who doesn’t want to be found?

How do you love someone who doesn’t want to be loved?

“We continue to clear out Hydra before they can regroup and start up trouble. Our priority is not Bucky. If he is not being controlled by Hydra anymore, then we don’t need to be worried about him as a threat. Hydra is dangerous, we need to be worried about them.”

They don’t seem to like his answer, but he says what he needs to say. The Avengers fight battles others cannot fight. They fight Hydra who terrorizes the people. They do not chase ghosts.

“Steven are you sure?” Thor asks.

“Yes.”  _No_

“Capsicle. I’ll have Jarvis continue his searches. Is that cool?” Tony looks through him, he sees everything there is to see. He has lost someone before, he understands.

“Okay, yea. I’d appreciate that. Thank you Tony.”

“Don’t mention it Cap.”

Natasha rises, her hand giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. She leaves without making a noise. The rest file out as well, leaving him in the conference room. They know he wants time alone. They know he needs time to understand.

 

* * *

 

The helicarrier fight. With the winter soldier - with Bucky. You replay the scene over and over again. You think about the fight so many times. Maybe if you do it enough times, you won’t feel empty. Maybe if you do it enough times, you will see that it isn’t your fault he hasn’t come back. Maybe if you do it enough times, you will see a mistake you made. Maybe if you do it enough times, you will see what you did wrong.

“ _Bucky, please don’t make me do this.”_ A long time ago, he told you to never beg. He said that you were not alone anymore, that you didn’t have to beg people for things. Whatever you needed, he would get it for you. If he had to bruise his bones working, he would do it. If he had to pick up another shift, he would do it. As long as you wanted it, he would get it for you. He told you these things.

Its funny. The first time you’ve begged in seventy years and it’s to the man who has told you to never do it again. You ask him to stop. You ask him to remember your face. You ask him to stop fighting. He does not. At one point, you could ask him for a star and he would break his leg climbing a tree to get it for you.

You ask him not to hurt you, but he doesn’t listen. You beg him not to hurt you, but he still does it.

You hear his metal fist crush your shield. You feel his limbs shake against your flesh. You know how he fights, you know how he moves. He has spent hours teaching you. You have spent hours watching the way his bones move under his skin. You know where his fist will land. You know where his leg will aim. It hurts anyways.

He was always the better fighter.

Metal. Shield.

Metal. Flesh.

Knife. Flesh.

Bullet. Flesh.

Bullet. Flesh.

Bullet. Flesh.

 “ _Bucky, you know me._ ”

You know he doesn’t. Because his eyes don’t shine when they reflect you. And his lips don’t curl when he speaks to you. And his hands don’t linger when they touch you. He does not know you. You wish he does.

You think about all the times he has protected you, used his body as a shield to cover you. Tucked you into his warmth, spread your hands up his ribs. Wrapped his arms around you, his spine was chiseled to fit your fingers.

He was your castle. He has placed bricks as high as they will go. It is strange to feel him rip them down.

He was your palace. He has changed his body so that they fit you. It is strange to feel him break you.

It is strange to feel him tear your body apart, to feel him break everything he has ever fought for. Your bones break under his palms, the same palms that held your quiet heart at night. Your skin tears beneath his fingers, the same fingers that have stitched you together. You bleed, but it will never be enough to repay him. He has bled much more for you. Maybe this is okay.

“ _Your name is James Buchanan Barnes_.”

His name echoes as it escapes your mouth. It has been so long since you’ve last said it. You love the way it feels on your tongue. The metal in his arm echoes as he plunges the name back into you. You can’t help but think that it is possible to love this about him too.

He hits you again. The man who has created you is tearing you down. Maybe he has this right. He has put you together, so he knows exactly how to take you apart. He has spent his entire life connecting your veins like they are constellations. Maybe he has the right to make you stardust again.

You drop your shield. The fighting is over.

“ _I won’t fight you. You’re my friend_.”

It is foolish to think that these words would work.

“You’re my mission _._ ” He says.

That is all you are to him and you know it. Once you were the world to him. Now, you are nothing. You have died before because you were nothing to him. You will die again because of it. You will never be enough.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Metal. Flesh.

Metal. Flesh.

One, two, three, four, five, six times.

“ _Then finish it. Because I’m with you until the end of the line._ ”

He hesitates on the seventh punch. You are foolish to think this means something.

You told him you were his friend, when maybe you should have told him you were his lover.

 


	3. swaying grass, dusting dandelions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turn your body at angles, keep your eyes clear. This will be the last time you visit this grave. No one is in it and it is time you realize this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter this time, but I felt like if I continued it wouldn't be right. I hope you enjoy! Leave me a comment on how you feel, I'd love to know. 
> 
> Will update next week! Thanks

It is a habit. To revisit places that mean something to him. Steve doesn’t know why he does it. He blanks out at the tower and ends up in a place his body takes him.

He goes to these places. Maybe to make sure he remembers something right. Maybe to recall his memory of Bucky, because all the places he goes, Bucky was there. He does this when there is no mission and he is feeling restless. Pencils do not fit his hands right anymore, so he cannot draw. He  goes to these places and he tests his memory.

Most of the time it is to the cemetery where Bucky’s empty grave sits. He can’t go there now, because Bucky isn’t dead anymore. He goes anyways, because it is a habit. Before he can stop himself, he already has the roses in his hand, the thorns still there. The florist always keeps the most beautiful ones reserved for him. Her eyes glisten with sympathy whenever she hands them to him. Her mouth quirks in curiosity, but Steve is never able to tell her.

“ _Someone I loved._ ”

He wonders what she thinks. How broken he is to revisit the same grave every week. How desperate he is to buy the same roses like they will bring someone back. Maybe one day she will understand. You do not stop loving something the moment it is gone from this Earth. You stop loving it when you are gone as well.

When he gets there, to the cemetery whose name he never remembers, it feels different.

Bucky’s empty grave. It is the seventh one on the fifth row. Grass beneath his dress shoes. Sunlight on top of his war uniform. He always liked to impress Bucky. The grass bends under him. Its blades are wet from morning dew. Step. Step. Step. He knows how many steps it takes, he has counted every single time. They never change.

Turn your body at angles, keep your eyes clear. This will be the last time you visit this grave. No one is in it and it is time you realize this.

The old roses. Wilted and dried. Petals spilling over the urn, onto stone, onto grass. The wind has stolen them. It is time you stop letting roses die so that your heart can live.

He empties the urn. The stems have dried, they are brittle and dehydrated. A hungry desert has consumed them. The grass is wet, the petals are melting onto it. There is something different about them. He holds them in his hands, they crumble.

There is one stem missing.

The petals are pooled in the wet grass, but there is one stem missing.

He counts them again.

One, three, five, seven, nine.

Eleven. Eleven stems and not a single dried leaf has been crumbled, not a single leaf in that thin urn has been damaged.

Immediately, you know who has taken it.

_Bucky._

He was here.

He has followed you here.

Broken blades of grass in the shape of a footprint. You know he would never leave feet-print behind. He is too careful. But you know it is him. You know he has been here. He has watched you come to this empty grave. He has watched you empty your eyes. He has seen you walk angles in your war uniform.

Maybe he sees that you are an empty grave as well.

He has followed you here, and now he has chosen to let you know.

A message.

 

* * *

 

A text from Natasha.

‘Where are you?’

‘The park.’

She does not have to ask which one. She already knows. The same park he is always at.

‘Are you looking for him?’

‘No.’ _I think he is looking for me, Nat._

‘You can. You don’t have to stop.’

‘I know.’ _Never. I’ll never stop looking._

Natasha texts him soft words, he tucks his phone away.

He sits on the same bench. The same bench Bucky and him shared everyday when their house was too suffocating. They came here when there was nothing else to do in the Summer. Here, at the park. Steve would draw and Bucky would watch him. He sits in his spot. He looks down at Bucky’s spot.

On the fourth row of wood there is a carving.

_S+B_

It is small, but it is still there.

One day, Bucky shows up with a pocket knife his dad gave him. When he first got it he showed Steve how easily he could move it between his fingers. Steve was so impressed with the way it filled his hands, the way it glided so smoothly in-between his fingers. Steve knew Bucky liked it when he was impressed so he always was.

One afternoon, Steve wanted to carve into the bench, but he couldn’t convince Bucky to let him hold the knife. Bucky said it was too dangerous for him to do it alone. In the end Bucky’s hand was wrapped around his, gently guiding the knife in his palm, making sure it didn’t slip.

Steve carved the letters S and B.

Bucky carved the plus sign.

Something only they would know about. Another secret they shared, something Bucky didn’t do with the dames, something only they had.

You stare at the empty spot, the fourth row of old and worn wood. You run your fingers across these lines, trying to remember the feel of his ivory skin drag across your hands. You try to remember how he held you like a cigarette, gently and carefully. You put your head in your hands, bent over, wanting to feel that pocket knife in your hands, his calloused fingers across you. You just want to feel him again.

Thats when you see it.

A knife.

The same knife the winter soldier used on the helicarrier.

The same knife he plunged into your flesh.

It is there, under the bench.

He was _here_ too.

He has followed you here.

He has watched you trace your initials, he has watched how you never trace the plus sign.

Because that was his part.

You wonder if he has done so. You take the knife.

A message.

 

* * *

 

_“Why don’t ya ever wanna go dancing with me?” Bucky, his eyes bright._

_“Dames don’t wanna dance with me Buck.”_

_It’s pitch black outside. They’ve snuck out in the middle of the night, two Brooklyn boys on the hill that no one knows about. Just them. He can’t see, Bucky holds his hand so he doesn’t trip. The moonlight trickles perfectly on Bucky, it always does._

_“Well I-“_

_“I don’t want ya to set me up with no dame.” He never wanted a dame, he wanted someone else. Something impossible._

_“Okay. But don’t you ever wonder what its’s like ta dance?” Bucky asks, his hands holding Steve tighter._

_Steve wonders if that was the question he really wanted to ask._

_“I’d probably be no good at the dancing anyways. I don’t know how.”_

_“Well .. I’ll show ya.”_

_“What?”_

_And then Bucky sweeps him into strong arms, he does it and Steve can feel the ground waver beneath him. He’s done this to all the dames but Steve doesn’t want to think about that. Just him in Bucky’s arms. They move, Bucky guides him, a hand on the small of Steve’s back. It is like they are connected, warmth so close together it melts into pores. He can feel Bucky’s heartbeat, it races just like his. Bucky looks at him in a different way than he does the dames. He is glad he has something they do not._

_They move like water, the grass tickling their ankles. Bucky’s breath is softer than the moonlight, his eyes are deep like a sea. It isn’t the dancing Steve expects. It’s slow dancing. Bucky slowly edging his way into Steve’s heart. Bucky slowly but surely breaking Steve’s heart. Slow dancing. Toxic._

_“You’re beautiful.” Bucky says._

_Steve believes it._

_Because Bucky made him feel beautiful._

 

* * *

 

The hill is the same. Seventy years pass and the earth here remains unchanged. The men who have spent their nights on this hill are both different people now. You wonders if you’re the only one who knows this.

The wind whispers steadily, swaying grass, dusting dandelions.

He lays down, onto the grass, the same spot where he did decades ago. Bucky would look up at the sky, trying to find stars, Steve would lie next to him, stealing glances at the only star he could see. Buck.

The clouds roll softly across the sky, they drag red streaks behind them. The sun is sinking. You have spent your day finding messages. You can’t understand what they mean, only that they are there and they are meant for you.

Steve looks to his left, tilting his head just a bit. He wants to see Bucky’s beautiful pale green eyes and messy brown hair. His eyes betray him.

There, the space is empty. But he looks closer to see the soil is uprooted, like someone has taken their fists to the ground. Two holes, shoulder length apart. One deeper than the other. Steve can already tell why. Metal and flesh.

He was here too.

He has seen you lay on the ground and search the clouds for his face.

He has seen you walk in circles, in the same steps as a dancing ghost.

He has seen you hold onto to something that has let you go already.

It upsets him.

A message.

 

* * *

 

That night, he visits the alley. The place he first met Bucky. The place he found out where he belonged in the world, the place he first felt summer melt onto his skin. It is still there. He has only been here once, the moment he woke up from the ice.

The man you lived for is not here. You knew that. But you came anyways.

The moon bleeds. Just like you did so long ago, onto this asphalt.

“Bucky..” There are things you want to admit. Things you have been running away from for so, so long. You want to admit them. You have to admit them. Bucky did not raise you a coward. So you will.

Count to ten.

“1..” The day he fell off that train was the day you forgot what the sun felt like. It died along with him.

“2..” The day he reached for your hand, the day you couldn’t save him, your heart was caged in an eternal winter.

“3..” Everytime your eyelashes meet, all you can feel is snow. Everytime you close your eyes you see things that scare you.

“4..” You miss the feel of his lips on your forehead.

“5..” You are weak and you know it.

“6..” You drew him because he was beautiful.

“7..” You hated the girls he kissed, the girls he touched. They could never see the man he truly was. Not like you could.

“8..” You are scared of the number ten. You have never gotten that far.

“9..” You love him.

The sound of footsteps against concrete and you know he is there. You know it is him. You have heard this soundtrack so many times. It has been seventy years since you’ve heard it, but you know exactly the way it sounds. You would know it in your grave. It is quieter than usual.

Steve turns around.

And there he is. Messy brown hair, pale green eyes. Fists tucked by his side. Flesh. Metal. It seems impossible.

“Bucky..” He whispers, too scared to move. Too scared to breathe. Are these pixels? Is this a dream? Will he run?

The man stands straight, his eyes a piercing green, they glisten. Cheekbones sharp like knives, brown hair flowing in long rivers, mouth a wine colored rose.

He is different, but the same.

“Steve.”

You spend days trying to remember what his voice sounds like. You hate yourself for forgetting. You only know it is golden and filling. He screams in your dreams, but he never speaks. He never says your name. His lips never curl.

Tears. Steve is crying.

The tears burn like fire, they fall like the first time Bucky told him he was beautiful. He is crying, the tears blurring away the edges of Bucky.

The man you have spent your entire life revolving around. You have memorized the lines of his face, you know how to draw him perfectly. You are wrong. There is no perfect. You cannot capture beauty this raw. He is in front of you, not in pencil, but in flesh and blood. He is here.

The man steps forward, slow, slow, slow.

He reaches out. Flesh arm.

His finger. It soaks Steve’s tears.

He cries harder.

The man crafted from a piece of the sun and a drop of spring. He is alive and his tongue is familiar with the shape of your name. His eyes are cold, but his fingers are still warm. This is how you know it is him. You remember the feeling of the sun. You forget the feeling of winter. Your eyelashes meet and there is no snow.

You find him.

You will always find him. And he will always find you.

You finally see what is so important about him. You finally see why he lives.

 _It’s you_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully you guys are getting the hang of my style of writing. If you see any errors please let me know and I will fix them ASAP .


	4. a war behind those eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You were scared that his tongue had forgotten the shape of your name. You were wrong to be scared. He knows your name. But he does not know who you are. The shape of your face does not register in his head. The bleeding ocean of your eyes are nothing but puddles at his ankles. The hours he has spent watching your hands, the nights he has spent holding your body, the years he has spent changing his skin to fit yours. It is unknown. You wonder why he has followed you. You wonder if he will stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am back! Another short chapter but the feels are there :) I really hope you enjoy! Tell me what you think and let me know if you see any problems.

They sit at the nearby diner, the one around the corner of the alley. It was the same one they use to go to years ago. The building was long re-renovated, but it was in the same spot. Steve liked the strawberry milkshakes and Bucky worked a little more to let him have them. If Steve was ever feeling sad or if he recently beat a sickness, Bucky would take him to this diner. He pushed strawberry milkshakes under Steve’s nose. Steve smiled and Bucky was pink in the face. Every time.

He wonders if Bucky remembers this.

Bucky follows him silently to the diner, he only nods when Steve asks if they can .. talk. He can feel Bucky’s eyes on his back as he leads the way, and he can only wonder how long Bucky has trailed him. How familiar this feeling is, and how it has not left him ever since the helicarrier fight. How long has Bucky been following him? Watching him? Ever since the crash? Has Bucky been watching him all this time? What had he been looking for?

Did he find it?

When they enter the diner, Bucky watches the surroundings, he watches everything. His eyes move quick. He catalogs the faces of everyone in that diner in a single swoop of the eyes. Steve does not doubt that he memorizes each and every detail of these people. They sit at the corner of the diner, away from windows, away from glass.

Bucky is different. But the same. It is him, but at the same time it isn’t.

“I’m sorry.” Is the first thing Bucky says.

You want to ask him a million things. You want to tell him a million things. There is a book of words you wanted to tell him, ever since he fell off that train. The book became thicker and thicker with each passing day, it is tucked deep in your bookshelf heart.

‘I’m sorry.’ ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘I love you.’ ‘Don’t leave me.’ ‘It was all my fault.’ ‘I should have caught you Buck, I should have caught you.’ ‘What I’d give to hear your voice again.’ ‘I’m a’ win this war for you.’ ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘I miss you.’ ‘I wish I was drunk.’ ‘God I miss you Buck.’ ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘I’m so sorry Buck.’ ‘I love you.’ ‘Rest in paradise.’ ‘The war is almost over.’ ‘I wish you were here to see it.’ ‘It’s not the same.’ ‘I’m not winning if you’re not next to me.’ ‘I’m gonna end it. For us.’ ‘See you soon Buck.’ ‘I love you.’

None of these things you can say now.

“For what Buck?”

“The helicarrier.”

_What?_

“It’s okay. I healed. And .. you were different.” The first thing Bucky has said to you while lucid and it’s an apology. You don’t admit that you’d let him hurt you over and over just so that he never leaves. It is a terrible thought. But he is here, he is different, but he is here. You can reach over and touch his milky skin, you can breathe the same air, you can feel his heartbeat if you wanted.

He is here and you will do anything to keep him.

“No. I was the winter soldier.”

_You were. You aren’t anymore._

“Are you hungry?”  Steve asks, not wanting to picture the winter soldier anymore.             

Bucky shakes his head only once. It is mechanical.

“Are you tired?”

Bucky shakes his head only once. It is mechanical.

“Are you hurt?”

Bucky shakes his head only once. It is mechanical.

“Bucky.” He does not look up. “Do .. do you know who I am?”

You ask questions you don’t want answered. You ask questions that scare you. You think he is the same man. You know he isn’t.

The answer is not immediate.

He shakes his head only once. It is different. But it hurts the same.

You were scared that his tongue had forgotten the shape of your name. You were wrong to be scared. He knows your name. But he does not know who you are. The shape of your face does not register in his head. The bleeding ocean of your eyes are nothing but puddles at his ankles. The hours he has spent watching your hands, the nights he has spent holding your body, the years he has spent changing his skin to fit yours. It is unknown. You wonder why he has followed you. You wonder if he will stay.

“It’s me. Steve. Steve Rogers. I was – I am .. your friend.” You wonder who you’re talking to. If not the winter soldier and not Bucky, then who?

Bucky looks up at Steve for the first time that night. Things click, but Bucky doesn’t want to admit that. Or maybe, his mind does not allow it. You wonder what he is remembering.

The waitress comes by and Steve tells her two strawberry shakes. She nods and leaves.

“I .. you ..” he says, after another wave of silence. Bucky looks down, eyebrows furrowed. “I remember parts of you. I remember parts of me. I keep thinking they are the same,” he says. His mind has been wiped so many times, like the ocean wiping the beach. Sand forms into shapes, footprints are left behind, but the ocean wipes it every time. His brain is shaped in the teeth of this ocean.

His mind chooses to remember Steve, out of all things.

“You remember me?”

“Not enough.” Is all he says.

Bucky is silent after that. He watches Steve, like he is trying to figure something out. He is putting things together. Bucky may not remember everything about himself, but Steve has studied those facial expressions for hours. He has drawn them, he knows them. He knows every look and the emotion that accompanies it. There are wars behind his eyes. He is fighting a war within his own skull.

You wonder if he is winning. You wish you could help fight in this one.

“I am not the man you are looking for.” He says finally.

When he says this, it feels like the ice is finally breaking around Steve. The seventy years of glaciers that sit in his veins, they feel like they are finally melting. Numbness becomes feeling. Coldness becomes warmth. Chilling becomes thawing.

Bucky is here, but he is not the same.

Not the man on the hill.

Not the man in the alley.

Not the one on the bench.

Not the one in the grave.

“Bucky, I don’t care-”

“You have visited the grave eleven times. You have left behind one hundred and thirty two roses. You have traced the initials on the bench seventy six times. You have traced the plus sign on the bench zero times. You have danced steps on the hill nine times. You have cried two times afterwards. You are looking for someone who is not here anymore. You are looking for someone who is dead.”

“Bucky, stop.”

“I am _not_ Bucky.”

_You are._

“Listen, I don’t expect you to be the same man, I don’t care if you never will be. I don’t care if you don’t remember me. I just want you to be okay. I just want to know that you are okay. Please. I care about you. You’re my friend.” He says these things without restraint, it is sloppy and emotional, but he can’t stop himself. Steve was never one for words, at least when it came to Bucky. Maybe because the man always knew what he meant, even without words spoken.

He is quiet for a long time. The waitress comes by with the shakes and fries, she leaves when she notices the atmosphere.

You want to say something. Anything. You want to say whatever it is that will keep him here, keep him next to you. You can be his home. You can be his castle. It doesn’t matter. You will be whatever he needs you to be.

“Will you – will you come with me? I can help.”

It is selfish, but Steve can’t survive losing Bucky. Not again.

Bucky thinks about this, his mind is filled with holes. In his eyes, you can see the wars that he is fighting. You can see the movement of his eyelashes, how they quiver in thought. He is trying. Trying to be whole again. You wish you were capable of helping him, this man who has lived to save you, you wish you could make him feel whole again. He is missing parts of his life, he is a shell, a coffin.

Hydra has changed him. Washed his hands with blood. Soaked his brain with filth. Drenched his body with torture. Steve has read the Hydra files. They have done things to him that keep Steve awake at night.

He will not trust you so easily.

You do not expect him to say yes.

And he doesn’t.

“Not now. Not ready yet. Not until I sort things out.”

Steve can feel his heart thrash against his ribs, unrelenting, foolish. So foolish.

_When Bucky?_

_When will you come back to me?_

Steve doesn’t say anything. His tongue is tied, he is trying to swallow arguments that need to be said. He is trying to accept things that do not deserve to be accepted. He is trying to bite back confessions that no one is ready to hear.

_I need you._

_I need you here._

Steve nods, the bones in his neck move incorrectly. This is not how they should dance. They should be shaking violently, they should be fighting for the man they were crafted for. “When?” He asks, swallowing down ‘please stay’ and ‘don’t go’. They burn at the bottom of his throat.

“I need time.”

He stands up and you feel your bones wanting to gravitate toward him. It has always been this way. You are separated by decades of ice and snow, but seasons don’t change the way your limbs fit against his. Coldness doesn’t change the tattoos of his warmth stitched individually into each of your pores. Time may pass, but nothing will change the feelings you have for him.

“How long Buck?”

“I don’t know.”

_How do I know you won’t just run away?_

"Will you come back?"

Bucky looks away. He nods his head. It is mechanical.

There is a war behind those eyes.

You can’t help but wonder if this is a surrender.

 

* * *

 

He leaves, blending into spaces that the moon cannot reach.

You watch him go. How strange it feels, to see him walk out of your life again. To see him to go to war again.

You hope he will come back.

You will be waiting.

You will always be waiting.

 

* * *

 

He always comes back.

You think of the different times where he has left you.

Every time, he seems to come back.

The winter you were dying from a cold and he had to work to keep you healthy. Nails brushing your blonde hair away from your face. In your hand he presses his palm, on your red and sick skin, he presses his fingers. “See you later champ,” he says. “Going to work. Try and get better for me, ‘kay?” His lips press against your forehead and you nod. He will come back.

The day he turned 19 and found out his heart belonged to some girl. A gentle kiss on your forehead. In your pores, the smell of his expensive cologne, he never wears it for you. On your shoulder, a silent apology in the form of gripping hands. “Don’t wait up for me,” he says, “I won’t be home tonight.” In the morning with another’s scent on him. He will come back.

The war starts and he chooses to fight so you don’t have to. Two arms wrapped around your frail body. In your ribs, the buttons of his uniform rubs against you. On your skinny shoulder blades, he cuts his hands and bleeds apologies. “Don’t miss me too much,” he says. “and don’t get sick.” His lips don’t touch you. But he will come back.

The middle of the war, he tries to protect you but he can't. White fingers curled around steel rail. In your ears, the silence; he doesn’t say anything. In your eyes, the soft blurs of his face, tears. He doesn't say anything. But he comes back. Even when death separates you, he comes back.

He always comes back.

The end of the line hasn’t come yet.

 


	5. hands dipped in champagne skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You look at his profile. The sharpness of his cheeks, the palace of gold skin. The ghost in your dreams. The ghost with the metal arm. It is hard to believe that they are the same person. But you look at his face and there is no difference. This is the man you search for every night in your sketchbooks.
> 
> He is here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's safe to say I'm no good at writing action! Sorry! I hope you enjoy it anyways. Let me know if you find any mistakes!

“Cap! Behind you!”

The sound of Clint’s scratchy voice in his earpiece.

Steve whips his head around. Blood soaks his collar, the sting of a cut on his neck. _It will heal_.

There are columns of smoke, they rise from the mouths of fire around him. The body of Hydra agents lay broken on the floor, in some of their fingers, the blood of Captain America.

Steve sees Clint’s warning and ducks his head, a ray of blue lasers rip past him. The color and sound of it reminds Steve too much of the laser that ripped Bucky out of that train. He gets back up and throws his shield at the shooter, it smashes him square in the face, throwing his body among his brothers.

His shield returns, the sound of it slicing sharp through the commotion of war.

A Hydra base right under New York. The moment the first explosion hits, The Avengers are already there. It does not take long for chaos to ensue. Explosions and gunfire.

Steve brings his shield into the chest of another agent. Lasers streak through smoke, bodies fly into rubble. War is like a wildfire, soldiers burning whatever they touch. Casualties bleed under their boots. For every Hydra base they destroy, another rises, wearing ashes as decoration. They come back stronger each time, blood is spilled  but they own oceans of it. Soldiers die and their corpses are used as a rising ground. For every head that is cut, two grow in its place.

Steve turns quickly around, holding up his shield to swallow up another rain of bullets,

“Clint. Status.” He says, letting the shield whisper off his fingers and scream into the body of an agent. Another soldier manages a direct shot into his leg, the bright blue laser chewing up his flesh. He groans into the microphone on accident as the pain swims through him. The laser causes white hot agony, probably leaving third degree burns.

_It will heal._

The shield returns to him but Iron Man has already shot the soldier. The man of red and gold jets away to deal with another swarm before Steve can thank him.

“I’m fine. But fuck, are you okay Cap?”

Steve doesn’t look down, just swallows a mouthful of smoke and ashes. This pain is nothing. He has felt a thousand things worse. His body been terrorized by much greater things. Greater sins have desecrated his flesh.

Images of Bucky shuffle through his skull. Pain where metal meets flesh. Agony where green eyes darken. Blood of a soldier. Metal joints clicking into place. Whispers of ‘ _You’re my mission._ ’

He shoves them away, shoves these nightmares away, locks them inside his ribs for now. They will cage these thoughts for now. That is another war he will deal with later.

“Yea, I’m okay,” he breathes. “Eyes on Hulk?”

Two agents on his left. He takes them out with a curve of the shield. One agent behind him. A bullet just grazes his hip. He brings a fist into the soldier’s face.

_It will heal._

“The big guy’s with me.” Sam’s voice is strained, but still solid. “Feel sorry for the agents in his way.”

Thor joins, “Aye, he fights like a true warrior!”

An explosion sounds, the collapse of a building caused by Hydra lasers. Debris flies into the air, dust obscures sight, the earth shakes under him. It feels like the world is crumbling.

He has seen too many wars.

Tony’s voice cuts through the loud sounds, it rings in Steve’s ear. “They’re running.”

Steve scans the area to see that Tony is right. The agents begin to trickle in separate directions, they become thin like the pillars of smoke and storms of dust. The lasers stop, random gunfire increases as soldiers attempt to escape.

In the corner of his eye he sees, Black Widow snap the neck of two soldiers. On top of a building, Clint sends arrows into two more.

Time moves slower.

It does not feel right. 

He looks around. Again. There is something wrong.

A mass of green enters Steve’s vision, Hulk chases a soldier.

Thor sweeps down from the clouds, his hammer clearing out a pack of men attempting to run.

Red and gold armor zips through smoke.

Falcon’s wings slice through soldiers on top of a building.

Something is wrong.

Something is wrong.

_His entire team is in the same spot._

“They aren’t running.” He says into the mic as calmly as he can. “They aren’t running!”

They’re gathering.

“Damn it.” Tony groans. “Signatures of three bombs in the area. They’ve cornered us. Fuck – get the hell out!”

Steve’s heart pounds.

He sees Tony fly up and snag Clint. Thor picks up Natasha and swings his hammer into the air.

Sam is already zooming off into the distance.

“Hulk, run!” Steve shouts and the green man listens, barreling towards a team of men running away.

His heart pounds so loud.

He passes his eyes again just to make sure his team are all safe.

Red flames. Blue repulsors. Blonde hair. Green skin. Black wings. Silver arrows.

Breathing becomes labored.

He picks up his pace, running quicker now. He runs faster now that he knows his team will be okay.

In the corner of his eyes, he sees a fallen man. He stops to help up the SHIELD agent, pushing him towards the opening of some rubble. No soldiers get left behind. The smoke in the air invade his eyes, the fire licks at his skin. He runs, his leg aches in pain from the laser.

Pain courses through his veins.

More agony, than blood.

He will heal. He has too.

A blue laser whips right past his head, exploding ahead of him. The sound awakens nightmares inside of him, the lights cut through cities of smoke. He falls to the ground, the explosion running quakes up his legs.

Debris collapses in front of his escape route.

Blood, pounding in his ear.

He gets up and turns, seeing a remaining agent point his gun straight at Steve.

Another fire and it knocks the shield out of Steve’s arms.

Defenseless.

His leg screams in pain.

The agent walks closer, tossing the cannon and pulling out a gun. He shoots it at Steve.

Once. Twice. Three times.

He can only dodge twice.

But it will heal.

Tony’s voice crackles into his ear. “Where the hell are you Cap!?”

“I’m still at the site.” He mutters, feeling another bullet cut into his arm.

“ _What?_ Hold on, I’m coming.”

“No. Stay where you are.”

“No fucking-“

“That’s an order, Iron Man. _Stand down_.”

The agent walks closer, gun raised.

His finger curls around the trigger.

Steve holds his breath.

Breathing stops.

But there is no gunfire.

The agent collapses, his neck twisted at an impossible angle.

Steve looks up and ... Bucky is there.

_Bucky._

The only wound that will never heal.

 

* * *

 

A war passes and he still saves you.

You can break bones with the snap of your fingers, you can heal from any tear in your body, you can run alongside the wind. You are no longer the boy in the alley. Men can put you on your knees, but you will not shake when standing back up. Men can try and erase your existence, but your blood does not wash out.

You are not some boy in the alley anymore.

But still, he saves you.

He does not know who he is, but still he finds himself in front of you. Saving you. Cracking his knuckles so that you don’t get hurt. Staining his fingers with blood so that you don’t have to bleed anymore. Risking himself because you seem to be worth it.

You become a machine. In your palms, you cradle a shield. Whenever you hold it, you think of him.

You are suppose to protect him.

Use your shield to protect him.

Use your body to shield him.

Because he has already wasted his entire life doing it for you. You have held his bruises in your hand, dipped your fingers in his champagne skin, felt the purple of his injuries. You have swept your wrists across his wounds, wiped his bleeding cuts with your most vulnerable veins. You have cleaned up his body, his body that protects you. You have spent a life trying to swallow up his injuries, because he has them for _you_.

You become a machine, to protect him, so that he doesn’t have to hurt for you anymore.

A war passes.

You become strong. Fast. Powerful.

To protect him.

But still, he always saves you.

He always hurts for you.

 

* * *

 

Bucky helps Steve up, pulls him off the ground. His eyes run once, twice, on Steve’s body, inhaling each injury. In his head, Bucky is calculating which parts that hurt the most, what part of Steve’s body he should support.

He may not remember it, but Bucky knows exactly the way Steve’s body works. He knows the color of Steve’s blood, how quickly it sheds. He knows the way Steve’s body bruises, the way it spreads. He may not remember it, but maybe it is better this way.

Bucky throws himself under Steve’s arm, his metal arm swinging around Steve’s waist.

“You shouldn’t have helped that SHIELD agent.”

The smoke dusts across Steve’s wounds, it stings and hurts. Bucky’s body is pressed against him, it sparks memories that have been buried deep inside of him. These hurt, too.

You do not know which is worse.

“I couldn’t let him die.”

“He has three bullet wounds. Two have punctured his lungs. He's dead.”

It seems Bucky has learned to read other men’s bodies as well.

You swallow down envy.

“Why are you here Bucky? You shouldn’t be here. You might get hurt.” Steve inhales but his lungs are filled with short breaths, it is difficult to breathe. The man who has given him air is beside him, but still, it is hard to feel alive. He inhales, but his lungs seem too small.

You wonder if its because of the smoke, or the man splayed against your skin.

“You know why I’m here.”

You look at his profile. The sharpness of his cheeks, the palace of gold skin. The ghost in your dreams. The ghost with the metal arm. It is hard to believe that they are the same person. But you look at his face and there is no difference. This is the man you search for every night in your sketchbooks.

His earpiece crackles. “Steve? Where the hell are you!?” Tony.

“How long?” Steve asks.

“Thirty fucking seconds! Are you safe?”

He doesn’t reply.

He pushes Bucky away.

“Run, Buck.”

He will not die for you. Not again.

You would rather burn to ashes then let him be hurt.

“No.”

“Please, just run-“

“ _No.”_

He lunges, metal and flesh wrapping around your body.

He carries you, diving in the crevasse of some alley.

On the asphalt, your body grinds. In your ribs, his chest presses.

His body covers you. He is your shield. His body will protect you. His fingers will soak your blood. This is how it has always been. This is how it will continue.

The explosion is loud. Deafening.

He listens to Bucky’s heartbeat. Somehow, it is so much louder.

It bruises against his own.

The walls fall.

The ground shakes.

The alley collapses.

This is where you began, maybe this is where you will end.

This is where you met him, maybe this is where you will forget him.

 

* * *

 

“I’m going to fucking kill you.”

Pain is the first thing he feels.

The whirring of machines and sterilized scent lets Steve know where he is. Medical.

Remembrance is the second thing he feels.

Medical _with Bucky._ Memories of Bucky holding his sickly pale hand with sun-infused skin. Bucky’s wine lips pouring warmth into the pores of his forehead. Bucky’s palms holding his life better than the earth holds his feet. Bucky’s tears, darkening spots on his gown, darkening spots in his heart.

Steve pushes this away and embraces the pain. Somehow, this will hurt less.

He opens his eyes and an angry genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist hovers above him. Steve runs a quick check on Tony’s body. A cut above his eyebrow, and maybe a muscle pulled in his left leg.

“Hey. Hey. You” He looks at Tony’s scotch eyes. “Eyes up here. Don’t go checkin’ me out. For one it’s highly inappropriate and for two, you’re not my type.”

“Tony-“

“Uh uh! I haven’t finished yelling at you yet. First off: Stay where you are? _Stay where you are!?_ I cannot believe you told me to not come back and get you when I _know_ you would’ve ran your spangly ass back for a _kitten_ in a tree.”

“I couldn’t risk your safety, Tony.”

“So you were just gonna sit there and die?”

“To be fair, I was standing.”

A chuckle from the corner of the room and Steve finds Clint perched uncomfortably on a chair. The archer looks him in the eyes, which mean he has already cataloged each and every injury on Steve’s body. Clint looks at Steve in the eyes, which means the man has already beaten himself up for not being able to cover Steve, for not being able to protect Steve.

“Hey, hey, don’t get sassy. That’s my job.”

“Enough, mom. He made the right call.” Clint says. Steve checks him. There is a gash on his left bicep, a bruise blooming on his knee.

Tony whips around and glares at Clint. “Really? I’d thought you would be the one to back me up here. You nearly skewered that nurse intern because she wasn’t cleaning him fast enough.”

The archer rolls his eyes at Tony. “The point is, if you were the one in cap’s place, you would have done the fucking same. And Cap would’ve been the one standing here, yelling his head off at you.”

“Children, stop fighting.” All three look at the doorway to see Natasha walk in. The very tips of her hair are frayed. The edge of her chin is cut, she walks with a slight limp. No major injuries. “The doctors want to look at you two.”

They both open their mouths to argue.

Natasha gives them a glare. “Go.”

Clint pouts but doesn’t give a second look. He hops down from the chair and walks out. Tony rolls his eyes, giving Steve one last long look before grumbling on his way out.

She walks up to Steve’s medical bed, her eyes suffocate him. She wears that empty look that somehow manages to speak a million words. She cares, but she doesn’t show it.

“How are you?” She asks.

“I’m okay.” He replies. “Where are the others?”

“Thor and Sam are out running relief and rescue. They were unharmed. The moment they knew you were okay, they left. Bruce is talking to your doctor. Overall, damage was kept at a minimal.”

He lets out a heavy breath. That’s all that mattered.

His team was safe.

His team was okay.

But somehow, there’s something still amiss.

There’s an uneasy emptiness.

It’s a familiar emptiness. One he’s lived with for seventy years. It can only be filled by one person.

Steve falls asleep, feeling phantom hands dipping into his pale skin. Feeling phantom lips ghosting across the coast of his forehead. Feeling a phantom wrist curl around his own.

 

* * *

 

He holds your hand when you are lost.

His wrist brushes against yours.

He covers your most vulnerable veins with his.

He covers your weakest point with his weakest point.

Because at the same time, your weakest spot is also his strongest.

 


	6. stars in brooklyn skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He touches you like you are a masterpiece he is afraid of ruining.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so so sorry for my absence last week! I was at a leadership conference at the capital and university has been taking up all of my time! I will be updating on time this week. This chapter is slightly shorter than usual, but not by much.

Steve wears Bucky’s dogtags.

A steel ball-and-chain necklace with two identical tags on it. He wears Bucky’s name around his neck. The name _JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES_ , imprinted into his chest when he presses agaisnt it too hard. The name _JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES_ pressed into his chest after his uniform holds it so tight.

He wears it wherever he goes, resting on the tips of his collarbones, the clink clink of its steel reminds Steve what he fights for. Who he fights for. It is a reminder he has a reason to keep going. A couple of inches of steel that manage to anchor him onto this Earth.

He enters battle and it rests under his uniform. It was a silent promise that Buck would always be by his side when the battles were over.

Steve can still remember the day Bucky gave them to him.

It was after Private Lorraine planted that kiss on him.

Steve remembered _that_ as well.

That day, Lorraine pulled him against the wall with whispers of how this was right. Tongue inside his mouth, her lips were soft and sweet. One hand spreading down his leg, another pulling at his tie. He barely knew Private Lorraine, but during that time a lot of women liked to pay Captain America certain _attention_. Steve was never rude enough to push them away, but it never felt right either.

He _wanted_ it to feel right – her lips soft against his. The dozen other soft lips that came before Lorraine, he wanted those to feel right as well. Hell, he wanted it to feel right with Peggy’s taste on his lips too.

He liked Peggy, yes. She was a strong, amazing woman. Beautiful and independent, a woman who acted on her own accord instead of other men’s desires. He liked her, loved her, even – but not in the way that was right.

It was never right.

After Peggy caught him with his tongue down Lorraine’s throat, she was angry. She _shot_ his shield four times because of the kiss, and the gossip spreaded fast. Eventually, Bucky heard about it too.

Steve was expecting annoying teasing, taunting jokes, the usual package that came when Steve got some ‘action’.

That evening, however, something was different. Steve found Bucky hanging in the shower door, watching him. He looked at Bucky’s eyes and there was something different about the man.

Steve remembers it clearly – how solid and captivating Bucky looked. Skin wet, glistening from the recent shower. Little droplets like jewels on his skin, how right it felt to want and curl his tongue against those droplets. Bare chest and neck flushed from the hot water, pink blooming across his garden of golden skin. How right it felt, to want and sip up this pink color under  his tongue. A wrapped towel hanging dangerously on his hips, little curls of hair that Steve desperately tried to avoid looking at. How right it felt to want and to tuck his fingers behind that towel.

In the depth of his eyes, the reflection of Steve and nothing else.

Never anything else.

Jaw slack, eyebrows furrowed. Lips red from nervous biting, hair darkened, dripping water. Water trailing over the curves of his muscles.

How right it felt, to look at another man this way. To want and place his lips against the angle of Bucky’s sharp jaw, feel it slice against his tongue. To want and dip his fingers in the water that had accumulated in Bucky’s abs. To want and taste the residual shower water that Bucky missed on his throat. How right it felt, to look at Bucky and see a masterpiece.

“Heard ya kissed a private today.”

It was weird, to not hear Bucky joke around.

“Yea. And I got shot for it.”

“So how was it?”

“Why, are you jealous Buck?” He grins jokingly at Bucky, but the man doesn’t smile back.

Bucky walks over to him. Steve turns his body to face the man and Bucky brings his fingers up and rests it on his naked collarbone.

He shudders.

Bucky runs his fingers, slowly, slowly, down the bone until it reaches the ball-and-chain necklace around his neck. He watches Buck’s eyes, watches the way he stares at Steve’s skin. Stares at it like he is trying to memorize it.

Buck’s fingers rub down his chest, hand following the necklace.

Down, down.

Flames swell under his skin wherever Bucky’s fingers touch.

How loud Steve’s heart pounds. How warm Bucky’s fingers are. How right it feels.

In Bucky’s thumb and his pointer finger, Steve’s tag. He holds it gently.

“Bucky-“

Bucky takes it off, Steve watches every movement. Every shift of muscle beneath pink skin. The metal clicks as it drags over his head. He puts it on.

Bucky then takes off his own necklace and places it on Steve. 

“If they ever find me dead-”

“Buck-“

Bucky places his palm on Steve’s chest. It was exactly like he had done when Steve was sick and Bucky needed to hear his heartbeat. He looks at the dogtag, looks at it like this is actually where it belongs. On Steve’s neck. Bucky’s name, rank, serial number, inches away from Steve’s heart.

“If they ever find me dead, they know I belong to you.”

Steve doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t comment on how they shifted from Lorraine’s kiss to Bucky’s dogtag. He doesn’t comment on how this is how it has always been, nothing has changed. Bucky will always belong to Steve, just as Steve belongs to Bucky. He doesn’t comment on how everyone already knows this already. He doesn’t say anything. Just watches the way water droplets slide down Bucky’s skin, across the fields of muscle and flesh. Watches the way Bucky’s lips part, the way his tongue swipes across it.

“I can’t reach your forehead anymore,” he says.

“What?”

Bucky leans forward and presses his soft lips on Steve’s throat. His tongue must feel the speed of Steve’s heartbeat. How violently it travels along his veins.

Steve wonders if this feels right to Bucky.

 

* * *

 

He kisses you, and you have to face a truth that you’ve been running away from. You have to face the truth that his lips are the only lips that have ever felt right on your skin. When his lips touch you, when his breath melts into your flesh, it feels right. When he grazes softly against your throat, lips tentative like a paintbrush on a canvas, it feels right. When the edge of his teeth ghost across the artery in your throat, it feels so right. Your life lays inbetween his teeth and you like it that way.

The women you have kissed, the ones you have touched, they have given you nothing. You have desperately wanted the waves of soft skin against your thighs to feel right. The soft lips and floral scents, the sweet tastes and light giggles. You have wanted the press of breasts against your chest, the tangles of hair in your fingers, you have wanted it to feel right. You have wanted the moans to be real, the body of a woman to feel right. You have wanted the orgasms to feel right, you’ve wanted everything to be right.

It never is.

But when this man places an inch of him on you, there are suddenly constellations in your Brooklyn skin. The city that has never seen stars, the boy that is too smogged to see a clear night sky. He touches you and everything feels right. He kisses you and there are stars in Brooklyn. He kisses you and you wonder how he can make dust feel like a galaxy.

 

* * *

 

He touches you like you are a masterpiece he is afraid of ruining.

 

* * *

 

“You have to give him time.”

“What if..”

Natasha reaches over and places a hand on his. Medical let him leave the next day. He was grateful because hospitals weren’t the same without Bucky by his side, but at the same time he was on edge because Bucky had disappeared all over again.

Not a trace.

How good he has gotten at leaving no trace.

How good he has gotten at leaving no footprints.

How good he has gotten at leaving Steve.

 “He’ll come back Steve.”

Steve watches the way gentle winds whisper through Nat’s hair. He listens to the way her voice sounds so sure. Natasha grips the back of his hand.

“How do you know?” he asks.

Her fingers travel up his chest, up to his neck. They are smooth and soft, it is like she is barely there. Her fingers dig under his shirt and pull out the dogtag, it clinks as she pulls it.

“This is how I know,” she whispers.

 

* * *

 

True to her word, Bucky shows up that week.

Steve jogs in the early hours, when the sun bleeds into morning. He likes to see the part of the day where the sky is washed with red and orange. He likes to watch the deep colors reflecting off of city glass, setting New York on fire, staining everything in warmth.

He finds Bucky – or Bucky finds him – at the outdoor cafe Steve stops by each morning. It seems Bucky knows this, because he is already seated at the table Steve sits at every day. Steve walks up to the table and hesitates upon seeing the man there.

It is a surprise, but he only lets it settle for a second before he casually sits down.

The rising sun drops its warm fingers down, they hold Bucky in perfect ways.

“Buck,” he says, enjoying the syllable as it passes his teeth.

It feels right, for his name to slide off your tongue, for your eyes to bask in his existence.

He looks up at you with eyes darkened with thought. Shards of sunrays are embedded into his green eyes, shadows of his eyelashes dips gently on warm skin. His hair is long, brown tendrils curtain his face, some strands burn golden hues in the light.

This is him. He is here. He has come to you with peices of the sun lost in his eyes, with gentle shadows of eyelashes on his cheek. Your name may not be around his neck anymore, your serial number may not be read in tandem with his heartbeat, but he is here.

“Steve,” he says, eyes clearing up.

“I-“

“Yes,” Bucky says. It isn’t a whisper, but it feels soft enough for the wind to swallow it right up. “Yes, I will come with you.”

“You will?” Steve smiles feeling a weight he didn’t know existed, disappear.

“I don’t remember everything.” Bucky runs his lower lip under the front row of his teeth. He swallows, throat bobbing and Steve feels his heart race at the pillar of gold skin. “Not yet.”

“Do you want to? Remember?”

Bucky furrows his eyebrows, a familiar hue of determination sparking in his eyes. He nods. “Will you help me?”

It doesn’t take but a second for Steve to respond. “Yes, yes of course Buck.”

 

* * *

 

The next day, Steve wakes up to find a package on the kitchen of his apartment.

“Jarvis?”

“It is from Sir.”

“Tony?” He walks over to the package. Knowing Tony, it could be either catastrophic or incredible.

He opens the box with ease, finding layers of bubble wrap and a smaller box on the inside.

The box is stainless steel, shined with perfection. His reflection is clear in it. He runs his fingers across it once, twice, before opening it.

On the inside, there is a steel-and-ball chain.

It is a necklace.

A necklace with Steve’s dogtags on it.

On the top of the box there is a note:

_“To help him find out where he belongs.”_

 

 


	7. floorboards of your bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky crawls into the bed, body pressing against Steve, arms holding together a broken boy. Somewhere in their bones, there are directions written, directions telling them how to fit against one another perfectly. Bucky holds him tight enough that their heartbeats get lost in each other’s veins, tight enough that their warmth blends together. Bones against bone, maybe they bruise at the edges. Cell against cell, maybe they think of each other as seasons; always coming back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally back on schedule! I am so sorry for the absence, but this time I pinky promise I'll be on time. I even have the next chapter already written!

Bucky doesn’t move in until later that day. When he does, he comes empty handed, nothing but the stained clothes on his body, a pair ragged boots, and two calculating eyes. Only then, as Steve watches Bucky in the elevator, does he wonder how the man had been living these past weeks. His clothes  were dirty, worn at the edges, just like his face. His hair was long and unkept, a few strands invading his eyes. His cheekbones are sharp, neck hollow, eyes empty.

It all reminds Steve of a younger Bucky. One that was always growing but never had enough. Never had enough because he gave most of it to Steve.

But in a way, this Bucky is different. This Bucky’s eyes aren’t empty because of cold January nights, but because someone else hollowed them out. This Bucky’s bones aren’t sharp because he is hungry, but because he was starved by someone else. This Bucky wasn’t like this because he sacrificed for Steve.

“Are you hungry?”

Bucky looks at him, eyes clearing up. (Steve hopes that it’s because of him)

Slowly, he nods.

“Well uh – there’s a lot more food now. A lot more. I think you’ll like that.” The elevator door opens and Steve leads the way into his apartment. He can barely hear the soft foot steps of Bucky behind him as he walks into the kitchen. He can only think about how loud his footsteps used to be, the sound of boots slapping against asphalt in some alleyway. ( _Get your fucking hands off of him! Steve, you alright? C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up. What number did you count to this time?)_

Jarvis lights the room as they walk in.

“Sit.” Steve says, as he opens the fridge. Unsurprisingly, it’s mostly empty. It is then does he realize that he’s spent so much of his time searching for Bucky or dealing with Hydra. He glances over his shoulder and sees that Bucky is watching him. Kaleidoscope of spring and summer, his eyes hold so much but look so empty. It all feels so familiar. A certain burn develops in his chest, one that comes with the spotlight of those green eyes.

_He is here. Bucky is here._

After looking through the fridge twice, he decides on sandwiches. He takes out the basic things: bread, cheese, meat, mayo, lettuce, and sets them on the island Bucky sits at. He pretends he doesn’t notice Bucky watching the way his fingers move. He pretends it doesn’t fracture him in the heart to see how intently Bucky watches him. It has happened so many times but, somehow this time is different. It is almost like he is trying to memorize it so that he never forgets it again.

“We used to be hungry,” Buck says. “A lot.” He is asking a question, Steve realizes.

“Yea, we did. There wasn’t a lot of food. But we made it through.” He smiles softly. “We had each other. You took care of me.”

Eggshells. Or maybe a minefield. You are afraid of saying too much, saying things he isn’t ready to hear. (Saying things you aren’t ready to let go of. These words you have kept under your tongue for decades. They have become a part of you, a secret you’ve tucked under the floorboards of your bones. You don't want to let go of these words yet, they are a part of you now.) You are afraid that one wrong word on your tongue may not sit well within him. Afraid that a whisper from the slits of your teeth may feel like a scream in his ears. You don’t want him to run, you don’t want him to leave. He watches you, eyes hungry like a desert, trying to find something inside of you.

You are so afraid he will not find what he is looking for.

“I don’t – I can’t take care of you anymore.”  Bucky says these things like he’s ashamed of it.

Steve looks up, the soles of his feet ready to run, ready to run after Bucky if he decides to leave. Nothing short of the collapse of the sky could divide them anymore. He is ready to chase now, always ready. If Bucky leaves.

He doesn’t.

“I think – I think it’s time I took care of you, Buck.”

The man furrows his eyebrows, looking down at the plate of sandwiches, like this is wrong. He narrows his eyes like this is all wrong.

“There was a woman. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Pale skin. In pictures. We went to her grave. I think I promised her I’d take care of you. Who was she?”

It’s easy to figure out that Bucky was describing his ma’. Steve smiles, remembering Bucky's face when he showed him pictures and drawings.

“My ma'. Don't worry about that, it’s okay. You took care of me plenty, Buck.” _Your entire life, Bucky._ “It’s my turn now. Will you let me do that?”

The man looks up and there is something in his eyes. Something that rattles your bones, rattles your very core. There is something in his eyes that awakens tsunamis inside your chest. You forget how much of you he possesses, how much of you belongs to him. (You almost forget how he wrote his name on the inches your skin in the middle of the night. Softly, with the edges of his fingertips. _Stop, you’re tickling me Bucky._ ) He stares at you with this gold dust in his eyes and you feel revolutions change inside of you.

Bucky nods. And he nods again. Not like he is unsure, but like he is convincing himself that this is right.

A second passes before Bucky speaks again.

“Steve?”

“Yea Buck?”

“Can I eat now?”

 

* * *

 

“Will you be okay here?”

Steve opens the guest room door of his apartment. It was usually vacant, a previous home to Sam before Tony built him a floor in the tower. The room was similar to his own, wide windows, a king sized bed, a desk, drawers, a walk in closet. There are no defining qualities, no signs that someone has created themselves here. Steve pushes away the thought that, maybe one day, Bucky will give this room its own definition.

Bucky walks in, his eyes sweep the room and then he turns to Steve. The light that trickles though the window sink on his skin, casting shadows on soft blue walls. He nods.

“We used to sleep in a smaller bed.” He says it like he needs reassurance, like he doesn’t know what is real and what is a dream.

Steve smiles softly at this. “Yea, me and you huddled on one bed in that tiny apartment.” The memory sparks something inside of him, something he’d thought he had locked away previously. Memories of haunting breaths at the top of his spine, strong arms wrapped around his body, keeping him whole. Wearing Bucky’s sweater because Bucky said so, the smell anchoring him into sleep each night. Messy brown hair tickling the nape of his neck, a sleep-drunk Bucky whose lips press against his skin with a ‘ _g’night, Stevie’_. 

Bucky looks down, in his eyes, he is remembering something. Steve wonders which night he remembers.

Was it Bucky holding his quiet heart in warm palms? Was it loose fingers entwined in each other's so that they’d dream together? Was it his head tucked under Steve’s neck, quiet breaths on solid collarbones? Was it sleepless nights listening to Steve’s sick and broken breaths? Was it sloppy kisses on Steve’s neck because he was drunk? Was it whispers of ‘ _you’re beautiful’_ when he thought Steve was asleep?

“Will we sleep together in this bed?”

Steve gulps. “Well, it doesn’t get cold in the tower.”

Bucky looks at him like this isn’t a reason at all.

“Oh. Okay.”

 

* * *

 

_“You asleep yet?”_

_“Mmhn.”_

_Bucky crawls into the bed, body pressing against Steve, arms holding together a broken boy. Somewhere in their bones, there are directions written, directions telling them how to fit against one another perfectly. Bucky holds him tight enough that their heartbeats get lost in each other’s veins, tight enough that their warmth blends together. Bones against bone, maybe they bruise at the edges. Cell against cell, maybe they think of each other as seasons; always coming back._

_“S’good. You feel good.” There is the soft scrape of eyelashes against the back of his neck, breaths finding home in the pores of his skin. Arms curling around Steve like he is something important._

_“Ya’ came home, Buck.”_

_“’Course I did Stevie. That’s where you are.” A hand slips under his sweater, palm smoothing up his ribs. “S’ warm.” Chills run through Steve and he forces himself to believe it’s because of the winter. A finger presses softly in the space between two ribs. Bucky is warm, leaving trails of sun wherever he touches._

_He will never sleep a night without Bucky beside him._

_“G’night Stevie.”_

_A soft kiss on the back of his neck._

_Never once did Steve love winter._

_Never once, did he have a reason to love winter._

_At least, not until he found Buck._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To the readers who are wondering where Tony got the dogtags from, I couldn't fit it in this chapter but it is in the next one. :)
> 
> I'm still trying to write Bucky as recovering, so he is still acting like the winter soldier in a way. But I promise he will get better!!! I feel like it would be unrealistic to jump right into Bucky remembering everything and being normal again. Bare with me :)


	8. his palm was your compass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You hear him speak as if his body is not his own. As if he won’t fight you if you ask him to take apart himself. As if he wouldn’t mind dismantling his very skeleton if you just told him to. As if he has placed his body in your palms, as if he expects you to tell him what to do, who to be. As if he was a weapon, ready to be taken apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 8 starring a slowly recovering Bucky and a very worried Steve. Featuring the sass master Tony Stark.

“So how did you find them? The tags?”Tony flicks up his welding mask, upon hearing Steve’s question. There are black oil stains on his forehead. He doesn’t look up from the metal arm he’s working on, but still speaks to Steve. There are dark rings curtained under his eyes, and Steve knows that Tony has been working through the nights. He hadn't asked Tony to do this for him. Just walked into the lab and saw that Tony had already read his mind.  _Knew_ what he needed. And it seemed that the man always knew what Steve needed.

“Some old rich creep with a strange fetish for collecting stuff of yours. Don’t ask me what else he collected because, no, just no. I’m pretty sure he had your toothbrush or something. Yea, exactly, that was my facial expression too. Anyways, it took me longer than I’d admit to find them but the point is I found them.”

“I wanted to say thanks, Tony. It means a lot. I thought I lost them for good.“

The man grimaces hysterically. “Gross. Don’t thank me. You know I hate that. Anyways, it only costed a quarter of a fortune. I read about the tags somewhere in Howard’s notes. I thought it would be a good touch.” He pauses to twist something on the arm before continuing. “So have you given them to him? Where _is_ your frozen counterpart anyways?”

A soft sigh escapes his lips. “He’s in the shower. And he doesn’t remember everything yet, I don’t think it’s best idea to give him a dogtag with my name on it. He might get the wrong idea.”

“You’re important to him.” Tony doesn’t say anything else after that. No joke, no tease. Just, _You’re important to him._

“What?”

This time Tony rolls his eyes and places the blowtorch down, looking straight at Steve.

“Look, I’m not telling you how to live your life, spangles. I’m just saying, you’ve spent weeks looking for him. You barely even slept, and when you did, Jarvis was asking my permission if he could wake you from your nightmare. And yes, I was looking after you, don’t give me judgy eyes. Also, I’m not sure you even ate anything without us making Bruce use his puppy dog eyes on you. What I’m trying to so eloquently articulate is that you are important to him. Out of all the places he could have gone, he chose you. He had no memories, but the first person he turned to was you, cap.”

When Tony stops talking, he lets out a heavy sigh. Steve doesn’t know what to say, if there even anything to say to that.

“Give him the tags, cap.”

“I don’t know, Tony.”

Tony throws up his hands, muttering something about ‘geriatric superhumans’.

“Get him up here. This arm will have to do for now.”  
  


* * *

 

Bucky walks through the elevator doors and into the workshop. His eyes roam quickly across the expansive room, taking in the surroundings. He follows Steve, just a footstep behind. When they get to the center, Steve glances at Bucky. His hair is still damp, a darkened brown. Some strands stitched to the back of his neck by stray water droplets. His face is clean, free of dirt. The skin above  his throne of collarbones is slightly pink, his metal arm glistens in the light. His features are strikingly clear and it’s a steady ache for Steve. He has spent so long trying to remember this face.

Bucky looks around the room, glaring at the machinery.

“Tony likes to build stuff. He’s kind of like one of those mad scientists.”

Tony peeks his head out from under a table. “Hey, I heard that. I am neither neurotic nor angry, so stop telling people that before they start believing it. And I am not a scientist, I am an _inventor_. Much cooler. Don’t tell Bruce I said that. And if you need to describe me feel free to use words that actually apply, such as genius, billionaire, philanthropist.” He stands up and walks over to them.

Tony rubs his chin as he inspects Bucky. “Huh. I imagined you differently.”

Steve turns to Bucky who has an unreadable expression on. “Buck. This is Tony Stark.”

Tony waves him off. “Yes, hello. I can sign autographs later. But now, I will need you up on this table, please.” The man gestures towards the medical table. Bucky looks at Steve for reassurance and he nods, smiling softly. Bucky walks up to the table and sits on it. Tony walks away to the further wall, talking to Jarvis about Bucky. Bucky watches Tony with a careful eye, he is calculating something.

 Steve speaks up. “He’s gonna help you with your arm. Build you a new one.”

Bucky’s eyes snap to Steve, eyebrows furrow immediately when Steve says these words. Green eyes darken into something else, there is a shift in his shoulders, a tightening. A brief curtain of _something_ appears in his face. He looks away from Steve and nods once, tense. His head bows down, stilling. “Okay, Steve.”

“Buck? What’s wrong?”

Bucky's jaw clenches softly before he says something. Like he is trying to pick his words. “You used to let me hold your hand. When it was dark and you couldn’t see. And when you were sick. So I could feel your pulse." A pause. "You don’t want me to do that for you anymore?”

Steve steps forward, feeling his heart pain at hearing this. The man looks up at Steve, in his eyes, the saddest of hues.

“Buck, I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean.”

 Bucky looks at him again, eyes sparked with emotion. “You said he is building me a new arm. That means I won’t have feeling. I won’t be able to hold your hand anymore.”

Steve feels his chest tremble.

You hear him speak as if his body is not his own. As if he won’t fight you if you ask him to take apart himself. As if he wouldn’t mind dismantling his very skeleton if you just told him to. As if he has placed his body in your palms, as if he expects you to tell him what to do, who to be. As if he was a weapon, ready to be taken apart.

Steve steps just a bit closer, closer to those eyes. Bucky does not back away, he leans forward just slightly. He breaches his conditioning just slightly. Steve hopes that this is a small victory. “No, God – Bucky, we’re replacing your metal one, not your real one. Tony thinks your arm may be harmful, we just have to be sure.”

He furrows his eyebrows.

Tony walks back over with a floating screen of data. “I don’t _think_ it’s harmful. It _is_ harmful. Jarvis, what are the readings?”

“The scans pick up a tracking device, two injection devices, three shocking mechanisms, one remote activated sensor, and one explosive, Sir.”

Steve is immediately alert. “There’s – there’s a _bomb_ in his arm?”

Tony pulls up schematics of what looks like an arm. “Relax Cap, I have a temporary arm ready. Jarvis is the tracking device activated?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well that’s lovely.” He swipes the data away and faces Bucky. “Okay Barnes, I’m going to have to remove your arm or else they can continue to track you and or cause certain bodily harm. Do I have your permission to do that?”

Bucky blinks twice before looking at Steve.

Tony speaks again, "They can hurt Steve, too, Barnes."

Bucky snaps back to Tony, eyebrows furrowing. "Do it then." Tony nods and prepares.

Steve reaches out a hand and hovers over Bucky’s flesh hand. “Can I?”

Bucky looks down at The hand hovering over his, this time his jaw doesn’t clench upon watching his fingers move.

“Yes.” He says, slowly turning over his hand so that the palm faces upwards. He turns his wrist like this movement is entirely foreign to him. Like he hasn’t held Steve’s hand a thousand times now. Like the lines in his palms don’t already fill with Steve’s hand perfectly. Like his fingers don’t fit inbetween Steve’s pale white knuckles like puzzle pieces.

Steve takes the hand in his, tangling their fingers. Bucky grips back.

You hold his hand and it’s the first time you’ve truly tasted this warmth in so long. Somewhere inside of you, there is a starvation that is finally silenced. You slot your fingers inbetween the spaces of his, you wait for the grip of his nails into your veins. Brush your fingers across his knuckles, you are in too deep. How you’ve craved this feeling. How you’ve wanted to be whole again. You never thought that you could feel hunger in your heart as well.

“Alrighty then champ. This is going to sting, try not to punch me in the face.”

“Do it.” Bucky says, jaws tightening minutely.

It turns out, the removal hurts Steve a lot more than it hurts Bucky.

 

* * *

 

You’ve searched endlessly. You’ve searched everywhere for this man. In your dreams. In your heart. In your sketchbooks. In your memories. In your nightmares. You search endlessly. And one day you find him. You finally find him, but he hasn’t found himself yet. He is lost, his own skin too big around him.

You wonder how to help him when all of his life he was the one who helped you find your way. He was a beacon always bringing you home. When you were lost at sea, he always found you. His palm was a compass that never let you get lost.

But now, he is the lost one. And you can’t help but hate yourself for not being able to help him.

 

* * *

 

Bucky gets off the table and moves the fingers of the new temporary arm, clenching the fist and unclenching it. The metal plates whir softer now, barely audible. The lights pouring from overhead reflects off the arm, its smooth texture is a clear difference from the old arm. Tony has already left to plan for the permanent arm. They stand alone, the quiet whirring of machines and the loud beating of Steve’s heart.

“Steve?” Bucky looks over at Steve, eyes lighter than before. Steve can’t help but notice that this Bucky was very different from the Bucky he found last week. He is less like the winter soldier, less cold and robotic, and more like a human. Like he is remembering parts of him, and the more he remembers, the less of the winter soldier remains.

“Yea, Buck?”

“Are you okay?”

Steve furrows his brows. “What?”

“Your hand is sweating.”

Steve looks down at their still locked fingers and he releases, realizing how white his knuckles are from gripping. He lets out a heavy breath he didn’t know he was holding. It seemed seeing Bucky in pain would always be his weakness.

“It didn’t hurt.” Bucky says, almost reading his mind.

Steve looks up at Bucky. Only minutes ago, waves of pain were swimming across his eyes. Now, he looked calm again.

_I did this to you, Buck._

_I did this to you._

_You don't have to hide the pain, Buck._

Steve looks away, feeling something inside him pain. He inhales sharply, somewhere inside of him, a storm has been waiting to thunder. “Oh God – God, I’m so sorry Buck.” He feels the words burn on the way out of his mouth. He feels himself falter.

“It – It didn’t hurt Steve.” He says it again, like he is confused why it didn’t work the first time. Like he is confused why Steve is suddenly buckled over, clutching the wall with a trembling elbow. Like he is confused why Steve is suddenly making quiet noises, desperate noises.

He looks down at Bucky’s arm, watches the way it moves. “I won’t let them take you back, Buck. I promise.”

“It’s okay, Steve. I’ll stay here. With you.”

Steve turns to face Buck.

Bucky watches the floor and talks softly. “I used to hug you. When you missed me. Everytime you missed me. I hugged you. To let you know I was here.”

Bucky doesn’t move and Steve feels a tug in his chest, he feels a slow ache in his chest.

Bucky doesn't move and Steve can't help himself.

He moves slowly, slowly.

Slowly, slowly.

Tucks his face on the side of Bucky’s neck. Runs his fingers on Bucky's shoulder blades. Lets out a sob. Gasps.

Arms wrap around him, one metal, one flesh. 

“I missed you, too. Steve.”

 


	9. for an invincible boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pencil in his hand fits best when it’s sketching the shape of Bucky.

The first time he draws Bucky, they are sitting on the metal platform outside of the apartment. Bucky a growing boy, Steve no different.

It happens when Steve looks over at Bucky and feels something inside of him ache.

The sun just beginning to bleed into the sky, a steady warmth covering them. Bucky’s legs dangling off between the black bars, kicking lazily in alternating motions. His jaw, sharper than it was last summer, his eyes a perfect home for the morning lights. His face retained the sun in blurred angles, shadows dipping behind him in gentle shapes.

He looked breathtaking.

And it wasn’t right for Steve to think this way, he knew that. He could get really messed up if anyone ever caught him looking at Bucky the wrong way. Hell – maybe Buck would mess him up if he ever caught Steve looking at him like he was.

He looks away and opens his book. The moment his pencil scratches against the paper, he knows he’s done wrong.

He pretends to draw the city, a concrete jungle that holds Bucky perfectly. He draws the buildings like he always draws them, but in the center of it, a boy who seems to have summer written in his skin. A curve of the pencil and suddenly Bucky’s jaw is formed. A soft line and Bucky’s collar appears. A swirl and Bucky’s hair is defined.

Delicate strokes for an invincible boy.

The buildings and Bucky and you don’t know which is home and which is your heart.

Drag your pencil in lines, watch how much more beautiful this city can get. You have drawn Brooklyn in so many angles, the streets like veins in your wrist, the buildings holding shadows behind them. Sketch the boy in front of you and suddenly it all falls into place. Suddenly this city is not your home, suddenly this city is only home because this boy makes it that way. Suddenly, you can’t picture this city without it reflecting in his eyes. You can’t feel this city sun without it washing away his skin.

Brush your pinky across the page, watch the shadows of this building smudge on his neck. Scratch your pencil and watch the city smog darken his face. Drag your edge, watch how his bones are strong like Brooklyn Bridge.

Steve finishes the sketch and Bucky only glances at him.

After that, he doesn’t touch his sketchbook for days.

 

* * *

 

The next time it happens, Bucky comes home drunk. Bucky’s parents are gone and he takes a girl out dancing.

Steve is under his arm the moment he stumbles through the door. The smell of alcohol ghosts on his skin, Bucky’s low chuckle right in his ear. The smell of cheap whiskey like a cologne on him.

“Stevie. Missed ya’.” He purrs, lips brushing against the tip of Steve’s ear.

Bucky tucks his face in Steve’s neck and kisses softly. Steve feels his chest tighten and drags Bucky onto the couch, they both collapse on it.

“You’re drunk.”

Bucky stares at him lazily. His eyes are dark and filled with everything Steve is afraid of. His lashes flutter, cheeks dusted pink. There was something about a drunken Bucky. It seemed even the way he fell apart was beautiful.

“You’re beautiful, y’know tha’?”

Steve spares a smile. “You’re drunk.” He repeats.

The man reaches up and places his lips softly behind Steve’s ear. Almost the same spot he whispers ‘ _g’night Stevie_ ’ (they are always soft, like this spot is where Bucky keeps his secrets. The press of his lips, brush of his tongue), but not quite. A wet swipe and and a sloppy kiss.

“You’re beautiful.” He says again, soft, soft, like this is a secret he needs Steve to keep. Like this is something he is afraid to say. “Only for me.” He says. Thats when Steve comes to conclusion that Buck was picturing one of his dames. He shifts Buck away from his neck and settles him on the couch.

Bucky falls asleep after that and Steve draws him. Buck drunk off of whiskey, Steve drunk off of Bucky.

The top three buttons of his shirt unbuttoned. The stain of red lips on his collar. The kiss-swollen shape of his mouth.

He draws it all and then he draws it again.

 

* * *

 

Steve gets into a fight.

He makes it to five before Bucky is storming in.

He accepts the arm around his waist but denies the flush on his cheek.

They make it home and Bucky is pressing ice onto his face. He lectures Steve, all the while his fingers smooth away any pockets of pain.

(‘ _I had him on the ropes.’ ‘Sure you did, champ.’ ‘Buck!’ ‘What number did you make it to?’)_

When he leaves for work, Steve dirties his palms in graphite drawing Bucky. He draws the steady blooming bruise on his collarbone. The scrape and dried blood on his left knuckle (his punching hand, but he also uses this hand to hold Steve’s). The cut on his right cheek.

Later that night, when Buck is asleep in their bed, Steve traces these wounds with his finger.

Buck stirs awake and catches him.

He only smiles and says ‘ _Don’t worry about it Stevie. Till the end of the line remember?’_

A kiss on Steve’s cheek and he’s asleep again.

 

* * *

 

It happens endlessly after that.

The pencil in his hand fits best when it’s sketching the shape of Bucky. He draws. Pages becomes books.

They watch fireworks in July. The lights and darkness blur messily on Bucky’s skin. Steve draws it later that night, when Bucky is asleep but the distant sound of fireworks keep him awake.

Autumn rolls by and Bucky can’t help but collapse on every bed of scarlet, gold, and orange leaves they walk by. Steve memorizes the sound of crunching and laughter, memorizes the wholeness inside of him so that he can draw it later.

When it starts to snow, Bucky becomes something of a masterpiece. Snowflakes clinging to his lashes, cheeks reddened from the cold. Steve draws him and can’t help but think that there is no greater artist than the seasons.

April passes by and Steve watches the way rain stitches Bucky’s hair to his forehead. Bucky leans over and teasingly hugs him, Steve watches the way the droplets slide off of his body and stain the paper. He draws around the dried spots, Bucky wet and beautiful.

Drawing Bucky becomes natural and that terrified Steve. Terrified him because if Bucky even glanced at one of these pages, things would be different between them. Terrified him because this shouldn’t feel natural, but it does.

He hides it and feels guilty because they share everything.

Bucky never asks to see his books, but always gives him a new one if he runs out of pages.

When he goes to war, he takes a page of Bucky with him.

He doesn’t get a chance to draw him again.

 

* * *

 

 

When Bucky falls, every pencil that passes through Steve’s hand ends up broken in half.

He draws Bucky falling from the train once and ends up with more tears than graphite on the page.

After that, he never tries again.

 

* * *

 

“You don’t draw anymore.”

Bucky’s been holding the question for a few days now, Steve can tell. He says it over breakfast two mornings after the embarrassing breakdown in Bucky’s arms.

Steve makes eggs the way Bucky liked them (Bucky doesn’t seem to notice this, but always eats whatever Steve gives him). He pushes the plate towards Buck and sits in front of him with a quiet sigh.

“No. I don’t.”

“You don’t want to talk about it?” Bucky looks at him with soft eyes.

Steve shakes his head, smiling thinly. “No, you can talk to me about anything. Ask and I’ll answer, I promise.”

Bucky blinks twice and nods. “Jarvis says there are no sketchbooks.”

“They got lost after .. after the war. I don’t know where they are.”He feels anxiety knowing that someone out there has books full of his home (both of them).

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why don’t you draw anymore.”

Steve looks down at the mug of coffee in his hand. Caffeine doesn’t work, but the taste brings him back home to their tiny apartment in Brooklyn.

 _(Their mornings always started the same. Steve waking up in strong, warm arms. The same groan when Steve pulls away. The same pull of his body back into a wall of warmth. The same kiss at the back of his neck. The same ‘Don’t go, Stevie.’ ‘Mkay, Buck. Five more minutes.’ Bucky makes coffee and Steve makes breakfast. They always touch, Bucky says its to keep warm and Steve believes him._ )

“It was uh – never the same. After.” Steve rubs the back of his neck.

“After I fell.” Bucky supplies.

“After you fell.” Steve nods, swallowing a mouthful of bitter coffee. Bucky made the worst coffee ever back then. Bitter and strong. Years later and Steve finds out he likes it best that way.

“Well, I’m back now. And you used to be real good.” Then, Bucky looks down and begins to eat his eggs, cleaning the entire plate. Steve is speechless. He just stares and feels this warmth encompass him.

“Yea. Yea, I guess you are, Buck.”

Bucky looks up at him, cheeks filled with eggs. He pushes his plate forward, his way of asking for seconds.

Steve smiles.

He makes the eggs exactly the way he used to.

 

* * *

 

After breakfast, Steve picks up a pencil and it doesn’t break.

His fingers don’t tremble.

He draws. He draws any and everything.

He draws .. and Bucky watches him.

He’s missed home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a safe Halloween. :)


	10. inches away, galaxies apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You were always his canvas.

It isn’t long before they end up back in Tony’s lab. Bucky only nods when Steve says they have to go get some tests done, he doesn’t ask what kind. When they get to the lab, the first person who greets them is Pepper. She walks over to them in her usual pencil skirt and blazer, half of her red hair pinned backwards, her tall heels click against the floor.

She reaches them with a smile. “Steven, it’s good to see you again.”

He returns the smile. “Pepper. It’s good to see you too.”

She turns her head to Bucky, offering a smile. “You must be James. I’m Pepper.”

Bucky nods curtly, never letting his eyes stray too long. He always had a politeness for women, Steve made sure of it.

Pepper smiles again and leads them to the center of the room, where Tony and Bruce are speaking in low voices. Tony swirls around and greets them.

“My favorite supersoldiers! Barnes! How’s the arm?”

Bucky flexes it, the soft shift of metal plates have a calming effect on Steve.

“Doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Tony grins. “Don’t get too used to it. I’m building you a better one. With cool compartments that have cool stuff in them. Also you'll get full feeling – oh and I got a special shipment of Vibranium, so it’ll be made like Cap’s shield.”

Bucky looks down to his fingers. “I’ll be able to feel again?” Tony nods with a smile and Bucky looks over at Steve, something .. private sweeping across his eyes.

“When?” His eyes don’t leave Steve, they hold contact for a little too long before it’s broken. Steve looks away, feeling something tighten in his chest.

“Soon, my frozen friend, soon.” Bucky frowns slightly, looking up at Steve.

“Buck, this is Bruce Banner.”

He looks over to Bruce. “The scientist.”

Bruce smiles. “Nuclear Physicist, yes.”

Tony frowns at Bruce, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms. He walks off toward the the worktable, leaving them.

“Am I broken?”

The emptiness in his voice makes Steve’s chest ache.

 _‘You aren’t a machine, Buck’_ is what he wants to say. “No, Buck,” Steve says as sternly as he can. “We just want to be sure you’re okay.”

Bruce make a tired sigh, putting on his glasses. “Yes. Nothing invasive. Just to see how you’re doing. Scans, a few blood samples.”

Bucky nods. He walks steadily and climbs on the table. This time, he looks at Steve softly, and then, down at his own hand.

He looks at it for a few seconds before turning the palm upwards slowly, fingers spreading. A request. Or an invitation.

Steve approaches with his hand hovering softly over Buck's.

It isn’t his flesh hand this time.

 

* * *

 

“How often did they wipe you?”

Bucky swallows, but only Steve sees it. A darkening in his eyes. A flinch in his hand. “They gave me a mission. I completed the mission. Then they made me forget.”

 “There’s extensive damage to the hippocampus and prefontal lobe, the parts of your brain that handle memories. Looking at the old scans from the HYDRA lab, there is some improvement. It would normally be impossible, but the experiments seems to be helping you heal.”

Bucky beats Steve to it. “Will I remember?”

Bruce nods. “Yes. It will take time, but it looks very possible. As your brain heals, it may happen. You’ll experience a lot of mood swings and disorientation. It won’t be a simple process, but possible. Are you remembering things now?”

Bucky furrows his brows, his eyes never stray to the hand in his metal palm. It seems, no one else is looking at it either. He doesn’t move the fingers at all, maybe too afraid of hurting Steve. Bucky nods once. “Little. A lot of it doesn’t make sense.”

Steve wants to ask, he wants to ask what Bucky remembers. Because he needs to know that somewhere inside Bucky’s head, he still has a home. He wants to ask but something grounds him. Maybe the twitch in Bucky’s finger, or the strain in his jaw. He stays quiet.

Pepper speaks up, and they all look over to her. “I have a specialist I’d like you to talk to. I pulled some strings and I think she can help.”

Steve frowns almost immediately, “Specialist?” Pictures of doctors poking and prodding at Bucky appear. He tightens his hand and Bucky looks at him.

“To help him recover, remember. She’ll talk to him, help him work through the – the memory loss and the trauma. If you agree, we can get started as soon as possible.” She pauses as if the next part is hard to say. “She .. helped Tony after Afghanistan.” Tony shifts uncomfortably from across the room. He continues working but Steve knows he’s listening. Pepper continues. “I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t think it could help.”

Steve turns to Bucky. “Buck?”

The man turns his head and suddenly you realize how close he is to you. He’s been so _so_ much closer before but this time it feels so different. He’s been so close you thought your ribs would bruise from his heartbeat. He’s been so close you thought your veins would leave prints on his palms. But now, now it feels so different.

Inches away, galaxies apart.

You can touch him but you can barely _feel_ him. There are diamonds in his eyes and you hope they shine for you. There are unspoken conversations on his lips and you hope they’re addressed to you. The tests are over and there’s no excuse, but you squeeze his hand anyways, knowing once you let go there will be lines from the metal plates. It doesn’t bother you. You were always his canvas.

There is a change in his voice. “Will it hurt?”

Steve feels his heart pain. Pepper replies before he can. “No – no, she won’t even touch you, James. It’s just talking. Think of her as a therapist. She’ll ask you questions and help you through mental exercises. If you ever feel uncomfortable, you can tell her to stop. You move at your own pace.”

Then, Bucky nods. “Okay.” He doesn’t look any bit relieved.

Steve wonders if the answer would’ve still been okay if Pepper had said yes.

It hurts to think that he probably would have. Because Bucky wants to remember, and pain is trivial in a sense.

Steve tightens his fingers.

Bucky avoids looking at their hands.

 

* * *

 

It seems ‘as soon as possible’ meant immediately that afternoon.

Pepper suggests Bucky goes alone and to Steve’s surprise – Bucky agrees. He doesn’t look Steve in the face when he says it, so Steve doesn’t argue.

Pepper explains that the specialist will come to the tower and Jarvis will monitor them both at all times. If anything happens, Jarvis will call Steve. Still, he can’t help but feel like he’s standing on needles. Even as Bucky walks into the elevator and avoids eye contact, Steve can’t help but feel nervous.

 

* * *

 

Jarvis never calls him.

Bucky returns later – an hour and fourteen minutes later, Steve pretends he doesn’t count. When the elevator doors open, Steve knows there something different.

Steve is sitting on the couch in his living room when the elevator dings. He’s been sitting and drawing the same empty vase on the table, never being able to capture it correctly.

He looks up, but doesn’t move from his seat.

Bucky walks in, steps no less solid than before. Moonlight trickling through the curtains, bathing Bucky slowly as he walks into it. He is no different than the skinny but growing boy Steve depended on decades ago. Same collarbones that looked like they were carved from ocean tides. Same body built by a restless city. Same skin held by a broken boy.

He stops a few feet away from Steve, silent.

Steve stands, placing his sketchbook aside. “Buck?” He steps forward and catches the smallest twitch in Bucky’s hand.

“It isn’t right, Steve.”

Steve furrows his eyebrows but doesn’t step forward again. “What’s not right?”

“What they did to me. Hydra.” It’s the first time Steve’s heard the word since Bucky’s return.

“No. No it wasn’t. They did terrible things to you.”

“I want it to be right.” He says next. “I want it to be right, Steve. I _want_ to make you happy. I _want_ to be _your_ Bucky. I want to be _yours_ but I don’t know _how._ ”

He’s heard this voice before, Steve laying sick on their bed, Bucky asking Steve not to leave him alone. (Warm hands holding his wrist, warmer lips kissing his knuckles. _‘Don’t leave me alone Stevie. I – I can’t without you. There isn’t suppose to be an end to the line._ ’)

Steve’s answer is immediate. “Bucky, you don’t have to. You don’t have to.“

Something catches fire in Bucky’s eyes.

“You’re lying.” The room is still. Everything but Steve’s pounding chest. Bucky can maybe hear it. “You look at me, hoping for the same man. Don’t lie Steve, I can see it. You stand outside my door but don’t knock. You hold my hand but I can’t hold it back. You look at me but I don’t know what to show you. Tell me how to _feel_ Steve – tell me how to feel and I’ll do it.”

It’s the most he’s said ever since he got here. Steve makes sure to collect these words and pocket them deep somewhere behind his trembling ribs. Maybe listen to them until he can’t close his eyes anymore.

“Can I touch you?”

Bucky looks up at him in disbelief.

His eyes have enough depth that Steve can feel himself drowning.

Bucky nods.

Steve steps forward, slowly – more afraid of himself than of Bucky. (He could never be afraid of Bucky)

He cups the back of Bucky’s flesh hand, this warmth is the only thing Steve can get drunk off of now. He drags the hand and places it on his chest.

Palm flat against his heart.

Weeks ago, Bucky had a gun pointed there. Now, he’s too afraid to touch it. Like he’s afraid of ruining a freshly painted canvas. (On Christmas day, in their small apartment, Steve tells Bucky to hold a canvas by the edges or the paint will smudge.)

Steve presses the hand softly. Bucky’s fingers flex, skirting across the edge of Steve’s chest. He is afraid of smudging.

“You’re everything I could ever ask for, Buck.”

The man doesn’t say anything, he drops his arm. He slowly walks closer into Steve, until they are pressed against each other. Tucks his face on Steve’s shoulder. Arms limp by his side. Still, so still.

Steve wraps his arms around the man.

Bucky cannot ruin something that he made.

 


	11. a game of russian roulette

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing about Bucky, he was gorgeous under the rays of the sun – but he was breathtaking after a dip in the moon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My absence is unforgivable. I apologize :(

 Their small apartment, Steve had memorized every creak of every floorboard. This apartment was them – it was Bucky and Steve – just like their bones made them who they were, this home did as well.

The first night it happens Steve can’t even protest. Bucky comes home from a night out with his date. His eyes darkened, and he walks straight to Steve the moment he enters the door. He switches on the radio and pulls Steve right into his strong chest. One arm snaking around his waist, another on the small of his back.

“Buck, what-“

“Shh, Stevie. Dance with me. Just like on tha’ hill.Ya’ remember those days?” He looks down at Steve and grins. His eyes dangerous, lips curling into a crooked smile. There’s a look Steve doesn’t like in his green eyes.

“Bucky, whats up with ya?”

Bucky leans in so terribly close, his voice so alluring. “Please, please Stevie? Dance with me? Just this once.”

Steve nods, slowly, feeling the soft breath of Bucky tattoo deep in his skin. They fall in step, the creaking floorboards whispering, Steve’s heartbeat torrential. Bucky’s fingers holding him tight, like he is afraid Steve will slip away.

It isn’t dark – this being the first time Steve has danced with him in the light. He is beautiful, sinfully so. Shadows on his face from hours of work, stubble on his jaw. He licks his lips and Steve hates the way his heart reacts.

Bucky brings his face down, nuzzles it against Steve’s, his stubble scratching. He closes his eyes, letting out an unsteady breath.

 _Do you know what you do to me?_ Is what he wants to say.

But if Bucky needed him to dance – maybe to fix his broken heart – then he would. He’d pretend to be anyone Bucky wanted him to be.

They move together, perfectly.

Steve tells himself the kiss on his cheek is accidental.

Bucky is picturing his dame.

It was accidental.

 

* * *

 

Natasha and Clint return from their mission at the end of that week. They both left before Bucky’s appearance and had been gone until now.

Nat finds Steve when she comes back to the tower, her blazing hair a little frayed at the tips, but no other signs of distress.

“Hydra.” she says. They are in the communal kitchen, Nat siting on the counter top with her ankles crossed, eating peach yogurt.

Steve leans against a wall, arms crossed. “They causing trouble?”

Nat doesn’t change her facial expression, her brows the same line. “No. That’s the strange thing. No activity.”

Steve frowns. “None?”

“None.”

“Do you think we should be worried?”

She licks her spoon once before answering. “Not any more than we already are.”

Steve bites his cheek before asking the next question. “Do you think it has to do with Bucky?”

Nat looks up at him, something changing in her eyes. “It’s a possiblity.” She says.

“A possibility.”  He repeats.

Steve would be lying if he said he wasn’t afraid.

 

* * *

 

“How is he?”

He lets out a quiet sigh. They’ve relocated to Steve’s apartment, Nat looking through one of his sketchbooks (after asking).

Steve lounges on a couch facing Natasha, his eyes watching the amusement in her face. “He’s getting better.” He replies.

“You sound unsure.”

“He’s going through therapy. It’s hard on him.”

A week of evening sessions with his specialist and things have changed so drastically. Bucky’s been remembering things slowly – at random – almost like a game of Russian roulette. It’s nearly the same except the bullets have found home inside Bucky’s bone and tissue. And maybe there are more bullets than empty spaces.

Some nights he remembers something from their old days – fireworks on Coney Island maybe, or another dame he had a fling with. Those days Bucky always came to Steve first, something gorgeous in his eyes, telling Steve every single detail of what he remembered. Even if it was just a random memory of Sunday morning where Steve made pancakes, Bucky told him the entire memory.

The clarity in his eyes, the life in his words. It was like a wash of cold water on a sweltering hot day.

With every game of Russian roulette, however, there is always the bullet waiting to spring forward. Bucky’s mind is similar in this way – the more you explore, the closer you get. The days he remembers something bad – maybe something from his Hydra days or maybe even earlier than that – he doesn’t go to Steve. It’s often the roof or the balcony on the communal floor. Those nights, he avoids Steve. Maybe afraid of showing this side of him.

He gives Bucky space, the specialist – Dr. Garnett – tells Steve to give Bucky more freedom to do what he wants, that it is important for him to have space. He reluctantly agrees.

“Are you afraid?” Nat asks. Her fingers tracing the New York skyline in Steve’s sketchbook. He drew that while Bucky watched him. Both on the roof, both silent. Bucky throwing pebbles at pigeons that got in the way of the skyline, Steve smiling softly in return. He fell asleep on Steve’s shoulder as the sun came down. Steve wished he could’ve drawn it.

“No.” He says, not really clear on what she was asking about.

Maybe in general.

She makes a noncommittal hum.

They both know he is lying.

Nat flips to the next page.

 

* * *

 

Bucky returns when Natasha is on her way to the elevator.

When the doors open, his eyes are quick to take in the unexpected guest. Steve watches something – recognition – roam over his eyes. Did he remember her from the mission?

“Hello James.” She greets.

Bucky nods. “Hey.”

“Natasha. It’s good to officially meet you.”

Bucky looks like he’s searching for the right words. “I – Sorry for the bridge.”

Steve’s eyes widen in surprise at the apology. It seems Nat is amused as well, she smiles, tilting her head to the left. Her hair shifts on her shoulders, Steve sees Bucky watch the flame.

“Don’t mention it.” She looks over to Steve. “Goodnight Cap.” She walks towards the elevator and turns to them. “Goodnight James.” The elevator closes and Buck turns to face Steve.

“How was your session tonight?”

The man walks over and sits beside Steve on the couch – he is closer than other days, Steve shamefully notices.

“Good.” Steve grins, angling his body so that it’s more open. “I remembered more.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

Bucky shakes his head. “No.” He notices Steve’s shift in expression and quickly adds, “I – I want to show you.”

“Show me?”

It seems like Bucky is rehearsing something in his head. He reaches his flesh hand out, palm up. Steve feels his heart jump at the gesture – it would be the first time he’d ask for something like this. Excitement – joy was rushing in silent waves through Steve’s veins.

Steve tentatively places his hand in Bucky’s, who closes around him. Warmth sparks and Steve has to steel himself.

Bucky stands, pulling Steve along, he walks steadily toward an empty space, stopping by the windows. He turns to Steve, watches him. The moonlight dips in and out of Bucky’s eyes – a stunning ocean of colors.

“Jarvis?”

Steve waits patiently, and to his surprise, music starts playing. A slow, soft hum soon increases in volume. He doesn’t recognize the song, but it is soft, steady – a complete opposite of his heartbeat. The lights dim down, moonlight completely tracing the edges of Bucky’s skin.

Bucky takes a step closer, so close that Steve can feel his warmth, hear his breaths under the quiet hum of music. Bucky’s metal hand finds its way up to Steve’s neck, the cold texture sends tremors down his spine. Steve understands at that moment – because everything feels so familiar.

His hand finds Bucky’s waist.

Their bodies were different, but everything felt the same. Bucky looks up at him, his eyes so beautiful Steve can’t tear his stare away. Slowly, but at the same time, they start moving to the music. Steady steps that they’ve practiced far too many times.

Breathing is difficult, and it’s strange because Bucky always put air _into_ his lungs. But here, slow dancing in a puddle of moonlight, it seems there isn’t enough air between them. The thing about Bucky, he was gorgeous under the rays of the sun – but he was breathtaking after a dip in the moon.

They never break eye contact and he wonders what Bucky is thinking about.

Take his hand, move in steps that you remember too well. His fingers have fire leaking from the tips, let this warmth intoxicate your blood. Breathe in the same air as him – let it asphyxiate you, let his tender breaths conquer you. His lips are dipped in crimson and you want to taste them – taste the poison that keeps you alive. Halfway through and your bones begin to tremble, it’s alright – its alright, it’s suppose to happen this way. Say his name – let the flavor of those letters sink into your teeth.

Let him take apart your pieces, because he knows how to put them back together.

“Buck.”

“I’ve done a lot of bad things, Steve.”

“Buck.”

They don’t stop moving, the music is a lullaby for their limbs.

“I’ve killed a lot of people – I’ve hurt a lot of people.”

“That wasn’t you. It was never you.”

Bucky tucks himself even closer – and Steve hates how he tries to make himself smaller. This man, who has always tried to become big and encompassing, this man who has always tried to enlarge himself to protect Steve – he hates seeing this man shrink himself. Bucky face touches Steve's – they’re that close, Steve can’t see his eyes anymore.

“But I remember. I remember doing those things. But - but I just want to remember you. Us.”

The last part aches and Steve knows it. The orchestra in his heartbeat lets him know of this – the clawing of blood through deprived veins.

Steve leans in closer, his lips ghosting over Bucky’s ears.

Slowly, slowly, he retells the story of their first dance.

He gives them memories of ‘us’.

 

* * *

 

Afterwards, before they pull apart, Steve feels the soft press of lips on his cheek.

He convinces himself that is was an accident.

 


	12. if I forget you, I'll starve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before Bucky leaves for the war, he tells Steve one thing.
> 
> “Don’t forget me, Stevie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope the chapter doesn't feel too rushed! Finals are swamping me, but school ends for me next week. Then I can devote my time to writing this work. I love writing these chapters so much, I just wish I had more time. I promise I will get better soon :). Thanks to everyone who has supported me by reading commenting and kudosing!

Bucky punches him square in the jaw.

The pain is sharp, but bearable – he was pulling his punches.

Steve wipes the corner of his lips, panting roughly. He looks up at Buck, who has his hair tied up in a bun, little wisps  loose in his face. He’s in a wifebeater, muscles glistening with exertion and sweat, Steve feels something inside of him lurch at the sight. Drops of sweat on his forehead, eyes drunk off adrenaline.

“I remember you being better at this.”

Steve smirks at him, standing back up straight. His arms ached pleasantly, muscles strained from hours of working out. He catches Bucky’s eyes lingering over his arms, chest – Steve feels himself blush from the attention. The gym is empty, just them, two soldiers testing their memories of old fights. Bucky’s pants are almost inaudible, but his chest heaves, shirt damp with sweat. IT had ridden up slightly, given Steve a view of golden muscled hips, sharp hipbones.

He was breathing harder and it wasn’t because of the fighting.

They knew each other’s moves, hit after hit. Weakspots, defenses, evasions, parries. Manuscripted into their bones, a map in their muscles drawn decades ago. Ice doesn't erase anything.

“Oh yea?”

He advances forward, throwing his arm towards Bucky. The man catches it and returns with a kick. Steve dodges and reacts. Their bodies move faster than their minds. Waves of an ocean, crashing against each other.

Steve gets distracted by the ripple of Bucky’s skin, the shifting plates of his metal arm. His eyes wander to where the silver meets flesh, the line like an earthquake on his shoulder. Suddenly he feels the urge to brush this line with his fingers, he wants to feel the texture, he wants to memorize it, just like the rest. He wonder what it would look like on paper, under his pencil. He wonders what it would feel like – taste like, under his lips. The line that makes Bucky different than he was decades ago.

A sharp pain in his calf and he’s being flipped onto the floor with a thud, Bucky straddling him.

The air is pushed out of his lungs, the room spins, Bucky’s weight pushing down on his hips. He looks up, panting, not able to push the man off anymore.

He got distracted.

Bucky leans down, stares at him, the weight of his pale eyes heavier than his thighs.

“Something botherin’ ya?”

The leak of Brooklyn accent scrapes across Steve's chest.

Steve looks up, the overhead lights casting shadows over Bucky's face. He lets his eyes roam over the sharpness of Bucky’s cheekbones, the redness of his lips, the curl of his lashes. Steve blinks, shaking his head.

“No. Tired.”

Bucky watches him with narrowed eyes, his butt inches away from a spot Steve doesn’t want to think about. The man on top of him watches him, they stay like that for a few seconds – some kind of tension swallowing them both whole.

Bucky brings his thumb and ghosts it across Steve’s lower lip, wiping away blood. The pad of his finger glides over Steve’s mouth and pulls away, Steve instinctively runs his tongue over the taste. A quiet hunger in his veins, a quiet thrumming in his head. He feels himself blush from the contact, Bucky watches the color in his neck pull upwards slowly.

He gets up and turns away.

“Let’s hit the shower, Stevie.”

 

* * *

 

Before Bucky leaves for the war, he tells Steve one thing.

_“Don’t forget me, Stevie.”_

It’s only four words.

But the moment Bucky says them, Steve is already swinging his scrawny arm straight into the man’s jaw. Bucky doesn’t see it coming. He yelps in surprise and is taken aback, palm cradling the side of his face. His pale green eyes are distracting so Steve doesn’t look at them.

He wants to scream at that moment. Because those four words seemed to carve out every ounce of air in his lungs.

This man has changed the shape of every single cell in your body. He’s made a dream catcher from your heartstrings and his nightmares. He’s hollowed out your chest just to listen to the echo it makes. He’s connected the bruises on your skin into constellations. He’s written his name on all the corners of your ribs. This man asks you to never forget him. But how is that possible, when every part of him, is a part of you?

When Bucky says those four words, Steve wants to scream them right back. Because there’s this hunger for Bucky inside Steve’s heart. At age 26, he doesn’t want  to deny what it is anymore. He wants to scream, _if I forget you, I’ll starve._

But Bucky looks at him, palm against his jaw, staring at disbelief.

Steve swallows the hurricane in his throat.

One day, Bucky would know why.

 

* * *

 

The sound of Bucky in the next stall does something to Steve. Something he hasn’t felt in a long time, something he’s afraid to think about. The sound of the showers fill the room, water splashing on tiled floors, steam clogging the air. A soft sound from Bucky makes Steve bite his lip so hard in his teeth.

 It’s always been like this.

Keep the hunger behind your teeth. Unspoken words tucked in the forbidden pockets of your body. The pounding of your heart isn’t louder than the ocean in his eyes. The thick desire between your thighs is off limits. The heat in your blood will cool off after it cycles time after time. You are not allowed to feel these things.

Steve turns the nozzle to the coldest setting. Cold water is suffocating, it reminds Steve of unpleasant things. But he bears though it until the hardness hanging between his thighs shrinks. He shuts it off, throwing a towel around his waist. He rests his head on the tiled wall, letting out a breath.

_You aren’t allowed._

He walks into the locker room, keeping his eyes directly in front of him. He dries himself quickly, pulling on briefs and sweatpants. He has to get out of here before-

“The hot water doesn’t run out.”

Bucky walks in, towel hanging dangerously around the throne of his hips. Curls of brown hair peek out, trail upwards inbetween chiseled abs. Drops of water trickle between the harsh line of his chest, his nipples are hardened, little puddles in the chasms of his collar. The metal arm shines, the line between metal and flesh is reddened.

Steve drills his eyes into the ground. Why does he want to taste this skin?

“No. A change I’m actually grateful for. ”

He pulls on his muscle shirt and can hear Bucky drop the towel from his waist. He’s never reacted this way to Bucky’s nudity; even if he tried his best to avoid it, he’d gotten his fair share back in the day. He shoves a towel into his hair and rubs vigorously.

A rustle of fabric and Bucky steps into his briefs and then his pants.

“What else?”

“What?”

“What else are you grateful for?”

Steve pauses, dropping the towel from his head. He thinks, thinks about all the things that have made him happy since the ice. It’s strange, because all he can come up with is the man on the rooftop. The man on the bridge. The man in the helicarrier. The man in front of him.

The man in his heart.

“You.”

 

* * *

 

Bucky blushes just like the first time Serena kissed him in middle school. Steve doesn’t say anything, about it, but it the color of his skin stays in Steve’s mind for the rest of the day.

 _He_ made Bucky that color.

“Steve?”

He looks up at Sam, who's watching him with a careful eye. They'd just finished a team meeting, Bucky telling the team as much as he could about Hydra. He was better - in this sense now. Not afraid of them, openly speaking of them. The location of bases slipping off his tongue, name of officers, name of plans, anything he could remember. Through the whole thing, Steve couldn't shake the picture of Bucky in his war uniform out of his head.

Bucky was talking to Clint and Tony in a corner, Jarvis pulling up a hollographic map.

Steve turns his eyes to Sam, who has this knowing look in his eyes.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. Sorry, spaced out."

Sam follows his line of vision over at the trio in the corner, his voice lowering. "He looks good."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You're doing a good job."

Steve foolishly feels a blush creeping over his traitorous skin. "It's not me, the specialist is good. He's getting there. Every day he remembers more. Every day he picks up something new, the old Bucky creeping through but a new Bucky still here."

Sam hums in agreement. He pauses for a minute before speaking again. "Hey - I uh, have a question. You don't have to answer it if you don't want."

Steve looks at his friend, who suddenly looks a little shy. 

"What is it Sam?"

The man clears his throat. "I know - I know back then it wasn't societally acceptable, but did you and Bucky have a relationship?"

Steve looks at him for a moment in confusion. "A relationship? Well - we were the closest friends I c-"

"That's not what I mean." He clears his throat again. "I mean, romantically." A pause. "Did you love him?"

Steve jerks at the question. Audibly. Loudly. Everyone looks at him as he drops the briefing papers in his hands. He flashes them an awkward smile - Bucky is watching him with strange eyes - before they look away again.

"Sam, no! Why would you ask that? It - it was wrong to feel that way. And Bucky was straight as a rod. Had more girls than I could count on all my fingers and toes." The blush was hot on his neck, chest. Bucky would compliment the color. He used too, all the time. He'd tease Steve just to see that color. 'Like roses,' he'd call it. 'or sunsets.' Steve blushes more.

Sam nods, not too convinced. "And you?"

"Me? What about me?"

Sam watches him carefully. "Did you have something for him?" 

Steve shifts nervously, eyes flickering to Bucky to make sure he wasn't hearing any of this - hell he'd kill Steve if he heard any of this.

"No." He says. "No." he says again, to sound convincing. He doesn't know if it's for Sam or ..

"It's okay. You know it's okay right? Now? To be gay."

A pause, a nod. "I know."

Sam watches him, lips holding back something. "In all my knowing you, you know I've never seen you unsure of something? You are always certain of your choices, of your words. I'm just saying if you do - if you do have some feeling inside your chest. I want to tell you it's  _not a sin._ It's not wrong. Loving someone can  _never_ be wrong. If you are feeling something in your chest - hell if you been feeling it for decades now, just know it doesn't make you a weaker person. You lost the chance the first time." Sam pats him on the shoulder. "Not everyone gets a second chance. You did."

Steve just watches Bucky.

He swallows the hurricane in his throat.

One day, Bucky would know.

 


	13. sink, swim, or drown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stand at the shore and eventually the waters lapping at your ankles will become roaring waves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am off from school for a month! That means I'm back to weekly updates. :) Sorry for the previous few weeks and my absence. Enjoy.

They do more training, it seems to relieve them both from a tension that seems to keep manifesting. Bucky continues his sessions and the results are evident. He remembers parts of himself, both good and bad. Clint and Natasha infiltrate Hydra bases via Bucky’s information only to find them empty – Hydra has dropped off the side of the Earth. Tony works on the new arm and .. things just seem to _move._

Bucky opens up and he remembers more. They talk more and he seems to form relationships with all the other avengers. It felt almost impossible at first – when Bucky first came to Steve. But now, now he is seemingly better – he is better with Steve. His personality hasn’t really changed but that doesn’t matter to Steve, because their relationship is unconditional and Steve would brave through any war for them to be together. So he takes the blessings when they come, retelling memories to Bucky whenever he asks for them. He never pushes and always asks before doing anything that may make Bucky feel uncomfortable. Small touches that he finds Bucky slowly leaning in to, slowly asking for without words. Like he is relearning himself through Steve’s touch.

On bad nights Bucky comes to Steve with empty eyes and open hands. He finds himself laying his head on Steve’s lap, eyes wide until they aren’t. Steve runs his fingers through Bucky’s brown hair, fingernails scraping softly on his scalp. It’s all so familiar, he’s done it all before. Like some play he’s rehearsing, except this time it isn’t a twenty-something Bucky who’s home from a long day at work. This time it’s a Bucky that’s afraid of nothing except himself. This time it’s a Bucky who’s so touch deprived he needs someone to warm his frigid bones. Back then he’d get a Bucky who’d just lay himself on Steve and close his eyes, mumbling ‘ _my hair Stevie, you’re tha only one I let touch it_ ’. Now, Bucky seemed like he was afraid of falling asleep, afraid of saying anything.

But it didn’t matter. Cause Bucky had Steve just like Steve had Bucky. He’d ignore the storm inside his own chest to quiet the one in Bucky’s. He’d shed warmth from his fingers and sew them in Bucky’s skin. They had each other now.

 

* * *

 

Steve can’t help but hear Sam’s words replay in his head. Even worse, he can’t help but feel this feeling in his chest that’s been infinitely existent but never acknowledged. He’s hated himself for a long time because of this feeling. It was a sin and it wasn’t right – it wasn’t right. Steve _knew_ it wasn’t right, but not because everyone said it was wrong. He didn’t care, could care less if someone had yet another thing to call him. Being called a ‘fairy’ or a ‘fag’ was nothing, Steve had been called worse things.

He didn’t care for those people, didn’t care what they said about him. No, he knew it was wrong because of _Bucky_. Many times Bucky came home smelling of floral perfume and alcohol, he came home with red lips painted on edges of his bones. His arms always had a girl in them, eyes always tracking one down. That’s how Steve knew what he was feeling was wrong.

Feeling that now, that same feeling again was alarming. Because the year may be different now but Steve was the same. It was wrong. It was wrong. It was wrong. Steve tells himself this over and over as he looks at Bucky now – Sam’s words awaken some kind of tornado inside of him.

He ignores it. Usually he can play it off around Bucky. But when he has to focus on something when Bucky is nearby, he loses his resolve. Like when they are training and he has to focus on fighting, it isn’t so simple to just ignore the way his blood pounds. He can't ignore Bucky when they are so close.

Because satin skin shifts over steel muscles and Steve has to rein in the beating of his heart. Metal knuckles aim for his ribs and he has to dodge to the side. Green eyes that are the same color as pale emeralds – like someone dusted jewels in the corner of his irises.

Bucky seems to notice his depth in thought and manages to best him continually. After a few times, it seems to bother him enough to ask. Bucky pins him effortlessly, Steve braces for the impact.

Bucky pants softly. “You’ve been different.”

Steve lets out breaths, the weight of Bucky straddling him doesn’t help him think at all. The man on top of him leans slightly down, sweat glistening, the plates in his arm shift silently. The bruise on the tip of his collar reminds Steve of Brooklyn night skies. His arm is red from one of Steve’s punches. “Sorry Buck.”

“Is it because of what Sam said?”

For a second, panic floods through Steve, he looks up, fear wide in his eyes. Had Sam told Bucky of his assumptions?

Bucky seems to just watch him, head tilting, his sharp jaw swallowing shadows.

“What? Did Sam say something to you?”

Bucky narrows his eyes slightly before shaking his head. “After the meeting – you seemed distracted.”

Steve wants to tell Bucky to get up, that they can continue this conversation somewhere else, without the weight of Bucky distracting him. But he can’t find the words and the warmth and contact make Steve’s mind a beautiful mess.

Touch him – tangle your fingers in his hair, pull him down so you can breathe in stars. Stop avoiding his oceanic eyes, let them drown your buoyant heart. Do what you always wanted to do, touch him in ways you know are wrong. Because he is a galaxy in skin and bones and he is in front of you. Say what you want to say – say the things you know you have no right to say.  

“Sorry.”

_It’s wrong._

“Is it because of me? Did I do something wrong?”

“No! No, Buck. Sorry, I’m just tired.”

Bucky watches him, and then something catches his eye. He looks down at Steve’s throat, and at first Steve starts to feel embarrassed, but then fear seems to unravel the knots inside of him. Bucky – Bucky leans down and his fingers touch Steve’s throat. Everything’s slow and Bucky’s touch is warm – always warm. They start at the middle of his throat and then slowly trail down until Steve hears the clink of metal.

The dogtags.

Bucky reads it before Steve can say anything. His face is unchanging but his eyes, his eyes are like a forest fire. Green and aflame. He stands up and Steve quickly reaches out for him but the man turns.

“Let’s hit the shower Stevie.”

 

* * *

 

When Steve gets out of the shower, Bucky is already waiting for him in the locker room. His hair is messy, still dripping wet. His chest muscles are taut from the workout, they flex and Steve feels himself even hotter. The towel around his hips is somehow even lower than usual, the ‘v’ of his hipbones all the alluring. Tempting droplets clinging to his skin, he is a masterpiece. Steve almost wants to draw him right then and there.

Bucky practically stares Steve down as he enters the locker room.

Steve grabs an extra towel and walks towards Bucky, trying to contain the emotions inside. As casually as he can, he starts to dry the man’s hair, just like he used to.

Bucky would come home from work tired – and Steve knew it was because he worked so that the both of them could eat. After a shower, the man would just collapse on Steve, wherever he was, body wet and hair dripping. Steve was his personal dryer, wiping the drops on Bucky’s skin while feeling a ocean pour inside his lungs.

In the middle of the drying, Bucky’s hand grabs his wrist. He stops drying and Bucky pulls his hand away. The man looks up at Steve, his eyes asking questions Steve doesn’t have the courage to answer.

The tension returns full throttle. Bucky stands and suddenly Steve feels small again. This time, the man places his entire hand flat against Steve’s chest, fingers touching his collar and the dogtag. They’re so close he can feel Bucky’s breaths cooling his hot skin.

“I can’t remember.” His voice is soft, lips achingly close to Steve’s jaw. “Steve, I can’t remember. Tell me.”

Steve has to swallow, hoping Bucky doesn’t notice his semi-erect cock beneath the towel. His mind flashes back decades ago – it was like deja vu. It was just like the day Bucky switched their tags.

 He clears his throat before answering. “It was your idea. To switch tags. You’d wear mines and I’d wear yours. You said – you said that if you ever died, that they’d know you belonged to me.”

The words feel so much heavier coming out of your lips. They’ve clung so long to your teeth that you’d forgotten what they tasted like. He has always belonged to you. It’s been this way for so long you’d forgotten what it felt like.  His eyes are dangerous and you’ve always loved a little danger. They look at you now with questions rippling carefully – almost as if they are daring you. Daring you to take a leap, daring you to test the waters. Do more than just look at him – feel him, drown in him.

Stand at the shore and eventually the waters lapping at your ankles will become roaring waves. Sink or swim. Sink or swim. Sink or Swim.

“Do I still belong to you, Stevie?”

Swim.

“Yes. Always.”

“And do you belong to me?”

Swim.

“Yes. Always.”

Bucky leans in and places his lips in the middle of Steve’s throat. He kisses that spot softly, Steve inhales sharply, feeling every nerve in his body shock.

“I can’t reach your forehead anymore,” he says, pulling back.

Drown.

 

* * *

 

Steve places the box of his own dogtags on Bucky’s bed that night. He sloppily scrawls a note and places it on top.

_‘Tony found them a few weeks back. You don’t have to wear them. But they belong to you.’_

The next morning Bucky asks for scrambled eggs as he sits and flips through Steve’s new sketches. He wears something different – a wifebeater. It exposes his neck, shoulders, arms ... and his dogtags. Steve finds himself blushing as he catches the steel reflecting the light.

Bucky looks up at him and smiles crookedly.

“You gonna make me eggs or what?”


	14. follow the smoke and hope for fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And Steve knows, they don’t ever break their promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone had a safe holiday and has a safe new year's.

“Buck, I’m fine.” Steve jerks his skinny arm away from Bucky, who gently but firmly grips it  and continues cleaning it with something that burns. They’re sitting on the floor of Mrs. Barnes’ nice clean kitchen, Steve a battered mess, Bucky cleaning him up.

“Stay still punk. If ya don’t wanna listen when I say stop getting into fights, at least let me fix you up.” Bucky stops and lets out a sigh after he continues to struggle. “Stevie. Stay still. _For me_?”

Steve looks away, frowning, but reluctantly holds out his arm, feeling a blush creep up his neck. “Fine.” Bucky looks smug and continues to clean the cut.

“And I don’t get into fights.” Steve continues. He could never let an argument go. “They were picking on some kid _half_ their size.”

Bucky scoffs. “Oh yea? You mean _you_?”

Steve slaps him in the arm softly with his free hand. “Jerk.” Bucky chuckles, Steve glares at him.

He watches the concentration in Bucky’s eyes, how gently he fixes him. He lets his eyes drift on Bucky’s features, who even as a teenager is already stunning.

Steve catches a tiny scratch on his cheek, just on the side of his cheekbone. _He must be getting sloppy to let one of them bullies get a hit on him._ Steve pulls away once Bucky bandages his arm and kneels between his legs. He grabs one of the wipes and gently dabs it on Bucky’s cheek. The boy stays still, his arms holding him up behind him. Steve can feel Bucky watching him closely, his breaths ghosting on Steve’s ear.

“Steve, leave it. It’s justa cut.” Bucky always hated it when Steve tried to fix his wounds.

“Ya got it cause of me. Let me clean it.”

“Stevie, leave it.”

“Hold on, I’m almost do-“

Bucky grabs his wrist and pulls it away from his face. Steve gasps softly at the rough hold, frowning. Bucky sighs before bringing the hand up to his lips, kissing gently on Steve’s knuckle.

He blushes and stammers, “W-what are you doing?”

Bucky shrugs. “It was bleeding.” He then smiles mischievously and before Steve can escape, he pulls him into his lap, arms wrapping around him.

“Buck! Lemme go.”

Bucky leans back against the cabinet, holding on tight. “Aww come on, I just fought a bunch of kids in the cold for ya. Let me warm up.” Steve stops struggling, muttering under his breath.

“Jerk.”

Bucky laughs, tucking Steve’s head in his neck.

His voice changes – softer, more serious. “I hate it when ya get hurt Stevie.”

Steve swallows, replying just loud enough for Bucky to hear. “Yea, I know.”

“I’ll always be there.”

“You promise?”

A silence. Bucky runs a finger over the cut on Steve’s knuckles, it stings on touch. He runs it back and forth, as if thinking, as if forming a resolve. It stops, his brings his palm to cover the cut, holding it softly.

“Yea. Yea, I promise.”

And Steve knows, they don’t ever break their promises.

 

* * *

 

Hydra is quiet. Only weeks ago they were bombing New York cites and now – now they were silent. The once inhabited bases are now skeletons, it seems they anticipated the Winter Soldier’s memory recovery. Finding them would be difficult, now that they erased every trace of themselves. And meanwhile they could be planning something without worry of being found. Steve had no idea on how to track them. With SHIELD in pieces and Hydra silent, there was nothing he could do.

Only wait.

The silence made Steve restless. Much like now, he spent his days keeping himself busy. Hitting the gym, spending time with Bucky, or analyzing Hydra data.

He’d sit in the conference room looking through different files, trying to get an idea of – of anything, really. He was tense and on edge, he blamed it mainly on the silence in activity, but a part of it was also something else.

Bucky. He was worried for Bucky.

Every night was unpredictable. Dr. Garnett was a saint, patient as ever. Every night her schedule was open – she understood the conditions and encouraged Bucky to go to each session.

Bucky’s memories come back in unpredictable waves. Some of his sessions would be fruitless and Bucky would return disappointed in himself. Steve would spend those nights bringing up old stories, his fingers curling with the hair at the nape of Bucky’s neck. Some sessions brought back cruel memories that belonged to another man. Those nights were silent, Bucky clutched tight in Steve’s arm, them sitting on the couch with Bucky’s face in his neck, the sound of fingers fiddling with a metal necklace. And any sessions that brought back memories that _weren’t_ bad were considered successes – they spent those nights doing whatever Bucky wanted to do.

Bucky dealt with all of it like he dealt with all battles. With determination and with Steve.

Still, Steve couldn’t help but feel protective, uneasy. Afterall, memories from both of Bucky’s lives were slowly trickling back, black and whites bleeding into bold and vivid colors. He was worried for Bucky’s mental state. What if he couldn’t handle the stress it put on his mind and body? What if he remembered too much, or more bad than good? Or too quickly?

Steve was afraid – simply put. Bucky built him to be a courageous man, but nothing scared him more than losing his best friend. He was afraid. Afraid of Bucky remembering too much of his darker life that it becomes overwhelming. Unable to handle the guilt and the pain of hurting so many people. Afraid of Bucky .. leaving. Running. What if he left Steve? What if he left again?

Would Steve be able to find him?

Follow the smoke and hope for fire?

 

* * *

 

“Captain Rogers.”

Steve throws aside another HYDRA file and sits back, letting out a sigh.

“Yes, Jarvis?”

“You requested that I let you know if Sergeant Barnes was ever in distress.”

Steve is immediately on his feet and out the door. “Where is he? Is he okay?”

Jarvis’ voice follows him as he walks towards the elevator of the floor. “He is currently making his way to your apartment. It seems his session did not go well.”

Steve walks quickly to the elevator, Jarvis automatically pulls him up to their apartment.

Once the doors open, Steve calls out. “Buck?” He walks into the living room to find it empty. The kitchen and dining room are both empty. “Buck!” He runs to Bucky’s room to find it empty. The bathroom is empty. He barges into his own room, fear slowly unraveling through him.

He finds Bucky sitting at the foot of his bed, knees drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them. He sat as if he tried looking for Steve but couldn’t find him. Bucky looks up with a mix of moon and darkness in his eyes.

“Steve..” His voice is soft, almost pleading.

“Buck, what’s the matter?”

He walks towards and kneels in front of Bucky, one hand carding into his hair, his thumb rubbing up and down. He brings his other hand, sliding it against the side of the man’s neck. Bucky leans into the touch, nuzzling into the warmth. He has a blank look that reminds Steve all too much of the videos he found of the Hydra lab.

“Hey, hey. I’m here. Buck.” He tries his best to soothe the man but he looks so defeated. At that moment, Steve wants nothing more than to be able to take away this pain in Bucky’s eyes.

Your hands can grip the planets, but somehow they can’t hold him steady. Your fingers can brush against stars, but they can’t seem to find his heartbeat. Your mouth remembers the taste of his name, but still stumbles over the syllables. You want to save him from himself but you don’t know how. You are a man who jumps on grenades. But how do you know if you’re touching the pin or not? How do you know if you’re touching shrapnel or not?

Steve lets go and sits on his butt, legs out in front of him. Bucky looks startled at the loss of touch, his lashes kiss each other in hunger. Steve leans against the bed frame, opening his arms to the man. Bucky looks at him as if searching for permission, his eyes still empty. Steve nods, a part of his mind realizing the switch of their roles. How he used to be the one needing to be held.

Bucky crawls over, settling against him, head resting on his chest, fingers gripping his shirt tightly. Steve wraps his arms around the man, trying again. “What’s wrong Buck?”

A silence. A month ago Bucky would’ve answered immediately, robotically. This is .. progress.

“I killed him,” he says, finally.

“Killed who?”

Steve feels Bucky tense again and continues to rub up and down his arm.

“Stark.”

Steve furrows his brows, trying to understand. “What? But Tony-”

“No.” Buck interrupts, “Howard - I killed Howard.” His voice doesn’t change, as if he’s accepted it. “A – a mission. He was a threat. I was made to eliminate threats. I made it look like an accident. He was a threat. He was a threat.” He begins to sound cold, like a desert has settled into his bones. Steve presses his lips to the top of Bucky’s head, holding him tighter, attempting to shake him from it.

“Bucky, stop. Stop. That wasn’t you,” He says, just loud enough for the man to hear. “You weren’t yourself.”

“They made me hurt him. My friend. They made me hurt him.”

Steve rocks back and forth slowly, his voice calm and soothing. “That's right, they made you. You weren’t yourself. It’s okay. You hear me? It's okay.”

Bucky shakes his head slowly. “I don’t want to hurt you Stevie. I don’t ever want to hurt you. You belong to me.”

Steve feels his chest ache. “Hey, hey. You aren’t. You aren’t going hurt me.”

Bucky looks up, his eyes wet. “How do you know that?”

Steve tucks Bucky's head into his neck. He whispers, “I won’t let them take you back. I’ll always be here.”

Bucky presses closer into him, he can feel Bucky’s lashes swipe across his neck with every blink.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

Bucky’s metal hand lets go of Steve’s shirt and instead dips inside the collar. Steve shudders from the cold plates on his skin, but they withdrawal quick, taking the dogtag out as well. Bucky presses his own tag against it, the metal clinking between them.

They both know they never break their promises.

 

 


	15. the last drops of scotch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your collarbones were once his pillow, the inside of your elbows were once his dance partners. Your jaw can still shade his eyes from the morning sun, your arms can still protect him from the cold. His home is still here.

“Who’s excited? Barnes! Are you excited? Cause I’m excited.”

Tony beams at Bucky, his hands pulling up scans and holographic displays.

Bucky looks at Tony like he’s insane before curtly nodding. “Sure, Stark.” He looks at Tony differently from before – maybe searching for Howard somewhere in those eyes.

Tony makes an insulted face before turning to Steve, who is against the wall with his arms crossed. “What about you Cap, you excited?”

Steve sighs before shrugging. “Tony, you’re sure about this right?”

Tony makes a loud, high-pitched  gasp. “Jarvis, is this some sick and twisted nightmare?”

Jarvis replies, his voice sounding almost sarcastic. “No, Sir, I am afraid you are not. You are 100% conscious.”

Tony turns back to Steve, his face wounded. “Capsicle, I am thoroughly injured by your doubts. Of course I am _sure_. I’ve spent days working on this bad boy.” One of his bots rolls over holding a tray. Steve walks over to see an exact replica of Bucky’s flesh arm.

Steve cringes at the sight of the displaced arm. “It has skin.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Why yes, how perceptive of you captain. It is a synthetic form of it. It isn’t a hundred percent skin, but the collagen scaffold that has been seeded with Barnes’ own skin cells makes it look and feel similar. It won’t bleed, but will provide maximal touch and feeling.” Tony looks impressed at himself, smirking.

Steve makes a disturbed face. “How did you get a sample of Buck’s skin?”

Tony lets out a sigh. “I hate you. You know that right?”  Steve shrugs again and Tony rolls his eyes. He then moves over to Bucky, where he inspects the metal arm. “So, Barnes, ready for this arm to come off?”

Bucky winces at the choice of words. “Will it hurt again this time?”

Tony takes a second to think before, “Yes. Like a bitch.”

Steve walks over to the table and stands on the other side of Bucky. He places a hand on the side of Bucky’s neck, drawing his attention. The man doesn’t pull away from the touch anymore, he hasn’t for a long time now. A month ago he would have jerked away from Steve, as if touched by fire, but now – now he leans into it, like he needs it.

“Hey, look at me.”

Bucky turns to him, his lips parting slightly.

“You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

Steve looks at him and offers a smile.

His eyes are the last drops of scotch at the bottom of the bottle you shared together a lifetime ago. It’ll get you drunk, but it is so smooth down your throat. You want to drink every part of him. Every inch of him. You want him inside your veins, just like he’s always been. Killing you softly. His scotch eyes - he looks up at you with fear painted in the corner of his lids – pain is no longer trivial. Push the tips of your fingers into his skin. His lips will part and you’ll feel it in your chest. Pull the hairs at the nape of his neck and tell him he’ll be okay. He trusts you.

He trusts you.

“Okay, Steve.” Bucky scrunches up his brows, as if trying to think. Then he looks up at Steve with a strange expression “Maybe you shouldn’t watch this time.”

Steve pulls his hand away and rests it on the spot beside Bucky’s thigh, letting him know it is there if he needs it.

“How is it you’re worried about me when _you’re_ the one about to get his arm replaced?”

Tony clears his throat, drawing both their attentions. “Yea uh – I hate to interrupt the whole” He throws his hand around in gesture. “Y’know, strange geriatric connection thing going on, _but_ I really want to see my baby work.”

Bucky and Steve both make ugly faces. Steve scoffs, “Please don’t call Bucky’s arm _baby.”_

Tony doesn’t seem to hear him because he starts the process of pulling Bucky’s arm off and suddenly Steve _really_ agrees with Bucky, because seeing his arm being taken off is still disturbing.

Suddenly, a warm hand is holding the side of his neck and he’s looking away from the metal. Bucky’s eyes are warm as they watch him. He winces ever so slightly from the pain but he never moves his fingers away from Steve’s neck.

Steve places his own hand on top of Bucky’s, holding it tight.

It seems, they both need it.

 

* * *

 

“So? How is it?”

Bucky stares at his new arm, palm turned upwards. He moves his fingers and Steve has difficulty telling the difference between the arms now. He looks – well, he looks normal. Bucky clenches his fists slowly, open close, open close.

No metal whirs. No shifting plates. His arm no longer a map of metal continents.

“Steve,” he says. “Your hand.”

Steve bites his lip before standing in front of Bucky and offering his hand, palm upwards. Bucky slowly raises his arm until their hands meet. The action is so simple, but somehow, it isn’t. Steve watches as Bucky’s eyes widen slightly. He moves his fingers slowly over Steve’s palm, tracing the lines there. The side of his finger caresses each of Steve’s knuckles individually. He scrapes his nails lightly on the blue veins in Steve’s wrists. Slowly, the hand travels up Steve’s forearm, stopping to wrap his fingers around and gripping.

Steve stays still, lets him explore his skin. Bucky’s hand travel up to Steve’s shoulder, eyes watching his own fingers as they move. Steve expects the hands to dip into his collarbone but instead they rise up to his neck, synthetic skin that feels so real. The tips of his nails drawing circles on Steve’s carotid artery.

Somehow, his eyes are hungrier than the Brooklyn boy you knew decades ago. He touches you with questions sewn in his fingers. You feel hesitation in the grooves of his hands but they hold you as if dealing with glass – as if testing his own memory of your skin. You don’t have the heart to tell him that you’ve never changed, you’ve stayed the same because your body belongs to him. You’ve wanted to keep his home alive. Your collarbones were once his pillow, the inside of your elbows were once his dance partners. Your jaw can still shade his eyes from the morning sun, your arms can still protect him from the cold. His home is still here.

“Steve.” Bucky looks up with a soft expression. His brows slanted, eyes lost. All Steve wants to do is hold those cheeks in his hands and tell Bucky he no longer has to be lost.

He clears his throat. “Yea, Buck?”

Bucky’s thumb brushes against his jaw so lightly it feels like he’s painting a canvas. “Don’t wanna lose this again,” he says, soft.

Steve can’t tell if he’s talking about the arm or the touch or Steve.

He nods anyways.

“You won’t.”

 

* * *

 

Bucky spends that day using his new arm for everything.

Eating, holding forks, opening doors, flipping sketchbook pages, pressing remote buttons, arm wrestling with Clint, learning to braid hair with Natasha.

He takes the liberty to do things by himself, instead of asking for permission or being told.

Instead of waiting to be touched, he does it himself.

Slowly, the scars of the Winter Soldier slowly fade from Bucky’s mind.

Dr. Garnett explains that it’s good for Bucky to start doing things by himself, _for_ himself. It’s good for him to start taking interest in things, it’s good for him to address his curiosities. It’s healthy to build relationships with others, good to stop being supervised and to start being independent. Steve can’t help but think that they’re treating Bucky like a growing child but Dr. Garnett explains that in a way, they are.

Bucky’s mind had been wiped constantly. When he’d remember something it would be wiped. When he built habits or tried to remember something, it would be cleansed. A blank slate. Tabula Rasa. But now that his memories are no longer being controlled, he gets the freedom to do whatever he wants, and in turn, that helps him recover. So as Steve watches Bucky run his new hand over almost everything in their apartment, he keeps that in mind.

Maybe this new freedom will help him remember.

Bucky finds fascination in Bruce’s balcony garden. The petals don’t rip between his fingers and that seems to make him the happiest. So Steve stands and smiles as Bucky touches all of the flowers in the garden. The man would look up at Steve and grin.

It’s the little victories that count.

 

* * *

 

“Steve.”

Steve swivels his chair, putting down the sketch pencil. Bucky enters the art studio, arms carrying a box. Steve recognizes the box as the one with old black and white photos Tony gave to him. It seemed in Bucky’s exploration of the apartment, he found it in one of the closets.

Steve smiles. “Hey.”

Bucky walks over and gently places the box on the table. He reaches a hand (his new one) to pull out a photo, handing it to Steve.

Steve looks at Bucky only to see curiosity. He takes the picture to find that it’s of Peggy. She’s in her war uniform in the picture, the bold red of her lips are invisible under the black and white sheen. But her ferocity is easily apparent in the way she stands, the way her shoulders raise. Steve rubs a finger in the corner before looking up at Bucky.

“Peggy Carter.”

Bucky nods. “Yea, I remember. She was yours.”

Steve puts the photo back in the box, letting out a small sigh. “Peggy could never belong to anybody. She was a free spirit. What we had was .. different.”

The brunette furrows his brows in confusion. “Did you love her?”

He stands and looks through the photos in the box. There are a lot of pictures of the Howling Commandos, most of them candids, a couple posed. Steve and Bucky are in a lot of them. Together, arms around each other. These pictures make Steve smile. There are few of Peggy Carter, but she is gorgeous in all of them.

“No. I think I tried to. But I never loved her.”

_Not like you._

He takes out a solo picture of Bucky, one he’s never seen before. The man’s looking away from the camera, at something not shown in the picture. The look on his face is familiar, Steve has seen it far too many times. It’s almost like the look Bucky gives when he’s looking at a girl he’s in love with. Eyes’ soft and dazed, as if looking at the gentle horizon. Lips parted and curled like the edges of an old map. It’s a little more serious in the picture, which makes Steve really wonder who he’s looking at so deeply. He looked so in love.

“Did I love someone?”

Steve pauses, looking up at Bucky. He offers a small smile. “I don’t know Buck.”

A pause, and then, “I think I did.”

Steve feels his heart pang in envy. He pushes it away, feeling foolish for thinking about something that happened so long ago. “Oh yea? Remember who?”

Bucky looks at his new arm, he presses a finger on the wrist. He lets go and looks up. “No, I don’t. Not yet.”

Steve looks down at the photo of Bucky, amazed at how the photographer managed to capture the man in such deep emotion.

Bucky nods, turning to leave. Before he slips out, he says one last thing.

“Stevie.”

Steve looks up at Bucky, half in the room, half out. The lights of New York streaming through the wall of glass, they touch Bucky on at the edges. He is beautiful.

“It was you. In the picture. I was looking at you.”

He leaves the room, once again shaking Steve’s heart like a hurricane.

 

 


	16. swept onto the shores of his skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You don’t tell him how you feel like a shipwreck sprinkled at the bottom of the ocean, waiting for him to find you.

Their little apartment door rattles, like little thunderstorms echoing through an empty room. He's been wanting to ask the landlord to fix the rusted hinge, but Bucky told him no. It reminds him of _them._

Steve looks up from his sketchbook to see Bucky stumble through, his keys clacking onto the wooden floor. He puts his pencil and book down, setting it on the couch cushion. He’d been drawing the view from their fire escape, wondering how big it would feel without Bucky there next to him.

“You’re home early.” He says, standing and walking over to Bucky.

It’s week before Bucky is to be shipped off, and he comes home every night smelling of liquor and sex.

As he approaches, two arms wrap around Steve’s waist and pull him close into Bucky’s chest. His pores smell of whiskey, his clothes are buttoned incorrectly, and his skin feels like an August afternoon. Lips lazily kiss the top of his head, the arms wrap around him possessively.

“You waited up fr’ me.” Steve tries to pull away to look up at the man, but the arms hold him close. “You’re warm.”

“Come on. Let’s go to bed.”

Bucky laughs softly. “You takin’ advantage of me Stevie?” His eyes belong next to the moon.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he says in reply. He tugs Bucky along and they walk steadily, Bucky moving like tides of the ocean, his warmth and scent come off in waves, effectively drowning Steve. He isn’t too drunk, but he isn’t just buzzed either.

He doesn’t smell of flowers this time.

When they get to the bed, Steve tries to gently lay Bucky down, but the man grips Steve’s arm, pulling him down as well. He yelps before being pulled into the limbs of Bucky. They bounce on the mattress and he is trapped under muscle and skin. Bucky’s nose nuzzles into his neck, drawing quiet gasps from him. A hand dips under his shirt and slides up his spine, drunken fingers kissing sober bones. Bucky holds his spine like the handle of brush, firm enough so it doesn’t fall, light enough to feel it glide.

He bites his lip. “B-Buck.”

“You’re gorgeous.” The man mouths at his throat, slowly and gently. Whiskey breaths rise and take everything with it. Steve pushes weak palms into strong shoulders, Bucky wraps them tighter together.

“You’re drunk.” He says.

“Don’t wanna forget this.” Bucky replies, his voice is so soft, but somehow it dips right past bone and sinew, curling right around Steve’s heart. “No one but you.”

 

* * *

 

You don’t tell him how you feel like a shipwreck sprinkled at the bottom of the ocean, waiting for him to find you. You don’t tell him how you’d burn your palms and cut your knuckles so that he can fix you up again. You are a message in a bottle, hoping to be swept onto the shores of his skin. When he leaves, you hope he comes back to find you.

 

* * *

 

“Jarvis?”

“Yes Captain Rogers?”

“Why is my apartment locked?”

“Sergeant Barnes has requested that I kept the door locked temporarily.”

Steve frowns, staring at the closed door. He’d only been gone for an hour – to the gym while Bucky went to his therapy session. When he came back, the door to the apartment wouldn’t open. He knocked and no answer. Bucky’s session was over, the apartment was locked, but there was no answer still.

“What? Why?”

“He has requested privacy.”

“Is he okay?” Steve feels suddenly uneasy. “Is he hurt?” The image of Bucky being hurt sends him into a quiet panic.

Jarvis replies calmly, his voice the same steadiness. “He has requested that I tell you that he is unharmed and to not worry.”

The uneasiness doesn’t leave, but now he starts to feel a different fear. Fear that Bucky was going through something that he didn’t want to tell Steve about. Or maybe he remembered something and now he was upset. There is a steeled urge to barge into the door and find out what was wrong.

Bucky had never blocked Steve out like this before. No matter what happened in his session, he always came to Steve. So what changed? What did he remember? What does he know? Why is he locking Steve out?”

The spark of panic slowly spreads through his body. “Jarvis, please open the door.”

“Captain, I apologize, but Sergeant Barnes was very adamant on this matter. I can assure you he is not harmed.”

Steve places a palm on the door, he wants to call for Bucky but he bites his lip.

 _Space._ Trust. Trust him.

He doesn't need you to babysit him.

“Can you – can you tell me if something happens to him?”

“Certainly, Captain.”

Space. Trust.

 

* * *

 

“Doctor, what did you and Bucky talk about in your session?”

Steve paces back and forth in circles. He’s walked through the entire communal floor in anticipation. Now he’s on the balcony, pacing back and forth – the waiting is a slow poison. Clint watches him in amusement before walking off to play games. Bruce politely provides his presence while tending to his garden. Nat pays him no mind while she sits on the couch and looks through a magazine.

Everyone is calm except him. He waits. And then he cracks in half an hour, calling Dr. Garnett.

There is a pause on the other line before there is a reply. “Steven, I can’t tell you that. Doctor patient confidentiality. If James wants to tell you, he can, but I can’t tell you anything without his permission.”

Steve stops, glaring at a patch of potted flowers. “With all due respect Doctor, Bucky’s locked himself in the apartment. He won’t let me in. I’m worried. ”

Another pause, almost like she is somehow analyzing him even though they’re speaking through the phone. She lets out a light sigh. “Goals.”

Steve furrows his brows. “Goals?”

“At the beginning of our session, we set goals. I ask my patient a simple question. What do you want? What do plan to accomplish? What makes you happy?”

He nods, trying to figure out what she means. 

“When I asked James these questions, he answered: ‘I want to remember. I want to remember everything – I want to remember Steve.’” She pauses for a second, as if she knew he needed a second to absorb this information. “The third question was the hardest. Not because he didn’t know the answer, but because he didn’t understand the question. When I explained it to him, his answer was immediate. Steve. Steve makes me happy.”

Steve shakes his head. “I don’t understand. So what were his goals? What does this have to do with him locking me out?”

For some reason, he can feel as though the doctor is smiling. “His goal was to remember.”

He remains silent.

"Doctor .. Are you saying .."

There is a light chuckle on the line.

“It looks like you won’t be hearing from me for a very long time, Steven.”

 

* * *

 

“Bucky.” He knocks again, louder. The doctor’s words are still echoing through his head, the moment she hung up, he was speeding to the apartment. He knocks again. “Bucky, let me in.” He rests his forehead on the door, taking a breath.

A silence.

A click.

The door unlocks.

He waits a minute to compose himself before going in.

Steve tentatively move back, his palm a little carving from nervous fingers. The knob turns and he enters the apartment, his ribs tired of holding such a frantic heart. The living room is dark, only slivers of the moon flowing through like rivers from space. The lights are all off, all – except one, the studio room. He walks towards the bright lights that are violent against the darkened hall.

He moves with purpose, anxious to find out whats going on.

He doesn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t this.

He walks in the room to see that it is empty of Bucky. Instead, it is filled with little square pieces of paper. Yellow sticky notes, ones Steve keeps in the corner of his art room. There are dozens stuck on the wall, they fill the long glass wall, scattered in various spot. There are some crumpled up and left on the floor, haphazardly tossed. Steve steps in to get a closer look. They all have Bucky's handwriting.

He spends a minute to marvel at how much Bucky has written. He starts on one end and reads them.

‘Fireworks at the bay for Steve’s birthday. Pretend you are cold so you have an excuse to hold him.’

‘Don’t steal. Bullies steal. Steve hates bullies.’

‘Wait for Steve outside the orphanage. Don’t forget. He lights up when he sees you.’

‘If that creep looks at Steve the wrong way again, make sure to tear him a new one.’

‘Carry Steve’s inhaler in your pocket. Steve forgets his too much.’

‘Promised to take Steve to Coney island. Save up money.’

‘Break up with Shelby. She makes fun of Steve. But don’t tell him why, he’ll blame himself.’

‘Do not rip the knees of your pants just to watch Steve’s fingers as they sew. That is creepy.’

‘Buy Steve a new sketchbook. He’s been drawing like crazy lately.’

‘Steve says real men treat dames right. You will never disrespect another.’

‘Don’t get hurt. It makes Steve angry. Be careful.’

‘Don’t let Steve see your cut. He will get your blood on his hands to clean it.’

‘When Steve lies, you have done something wrong.’

‘Watch him sleep when he’s sick. Listen to his heart. Don’t fall asleep.’

‘Button your shirt wrong. Steve always fixes it. Watch him.’

‘He looks at you differently when you say you aren’t coming home tonight. Start coming home.’

‘Steve watches you when you exercise. He thinks you don’t notice him from behind his book. Make sure to do it more often.’

‘Stop kissing Steve’s forehead. It is becoming hard to not think about it.’

‘Listen for his coughs. He likes to hide illness from you. Don’t let him.’

‘You will not let Steve join the army. You will fight this war for him.’

It does not take long for Steve to realize that his name is on every single note. There are many more, random memories scrawled urgently on a small square piece of paper, as if he wanted to write everything down or else he’d forget it again.

You read the words of his heart, as they bleed in front of you. Memories he made sure he never wanted to forget but forgot anyways. Memories he knows are important.

When he left, you hoped he would come back to look for you. You hoped he would never forget you. Your veins were like streets and he was lost without the direction in your eyes. The bruises on your body were like continents he always revisited. When he was lost, the curves of your skin would take him back home. The beds of your wrist were enough to show him where to go. When he left you, you hoped he would come back  - afterall, a map is useless if no one ever looks at it. You thought he was lost for good.

But here, after years of drifting, he has finally come back for you.

He remembers you.

“Steve.” The voice is soft.

Steve turns, slowly, but it feels like the earth is spiraling under him.

Bucky stands in the doorway.

 _Bucky_ stands in the doorway.

“Buck..” is all he can say.

It's like the world stops moving.

They stare at each other for a minute - maybe to see if this is a dream.

He runs into you.

Arms wrapping around you, they are so desperate. A hand finds its way under the hem of your shirt, tapping on the notches of your spine like a child testing out piano keys. He tucks his face into your neck, rain escapes from the corner of his eyes and into the gutter of your collarbones. He holds you as close as he can to his heart, fingers digging into your shoulders, anchoring into you. 

“Stevie.” He tastes your name. You feel it in your bones.

Steve hugs the man back, so tight. He holds as tight as he would have back on that moving train. As tight as he would have the last time he saw Bucky, falling from that train. ‘ _This is how tight’_ is what he wants to say ‘ _this is how much I wanted to catch you. This is how tight I want to hold you. Forever.'_

He is home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how well I wrote this ... hope you enjoyed ;-;


	17. he looks at you and you feel beautiful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Were you scared? When you fell?”
> 
> “Yes. But not of dying.”
> 
> Steve turns from the window and Bucky isn’t watching him anymore. It’s like he’s playing a careful game – waiting and moving at the right times.
> 
> “What were you afraid of?”
> 
> “Leaving you.”

Bucky watches him.

It's something new that Bucky has picked up, ever since his memory came back. 

Bucky  _watches_ him.

At first, it’s just Steve accidentally looking at Bucky to find him already looking at him. It feels almost casual. The kind of look that says: ‘can I have some more scrambled eggs’, ‘oh I wanted to ask a question’ , ‘why are you looking at me Steve?’. Steve thinks he’s over-thinking things – but after a few times of accidentally noticing it, he starts to actually catch Bucky watching him. As in actually staring at him.

And it’s not like Bucky hadn't watched him before – because he had. Many times, in fact. Bucky would watch him draw, eyes following every movement in his fingers. Bucky would watch him when he was sick – like if he looked away, Steve would vanish. Bucky would watch him sleep sometimes, when he thought Steve was still asleep – his gaze warmer than the morning sun.

It wasn’t strange.

Except that this time it _was_.

Because this isn’t _just_ ‘interestedly-watching-your-tiny-fingers-scribble’ or ‘you-better-not-die-on-me-while-I’m-watching-punk’. And it wasn’t ‘let-me-watch-the-sun-open-your-pretty-eyes’. It was _different._

And he couldn’t say why – but he does know one thing.

It’s unnerving. It makes him nervous and flushed and absolutely  _crazy._

The first time he notices the  _actual_ staring, it is the night after Bucky’s wall of sticky notes. That day, they had went to Bruce to get another neural scan to find out he did indeed look better than weeks ago. They also made arrangements with Pepper to continue Bucky’s sessions with Dr. Garnett – just not as often and not as urgent.

The rest of the day, they spent together, Bucky running through memories with Steve. ‘ _Just to be sure_ ’ he said. Bucky would ask Steve about his days since the ice, particularly about ‘alien invasions’ and ‘strange norse gods’. Bucky also wanted to try and follow old habits, maybe hoping to pick them up again.

Said he wanted to be the ‘old Bucky’ for Steve. Steve made sure to tell him that he didn’t care for that – that he had all he needed right now. But Bucky’s stubbornness seemed to be in his bones – he refused.

So after dinner that night, when Steve is reading a book Bruce recommended, a certain brunette shoves his way onto his lap. Bucky lays his head in Steve’s lap, fingers greedily grabbing for Steve’s hand and placing it on his head, nudging it up and down.

Steve chuckles at the childish request and runs his fingers through Bucky’s hair. The tips of his fingers graze across his scalp, and then he pulls through the rivers of brown. 

He reads the book – but after awhile he can feel Bucky’s eyes on him.

His eyes – pure enough to belong between stars – watch you. They’ve seen every corner of you and somehow even more. He looks at you and sees so much more than is actually there. His lashes have dusted against your neck in sinuous ways – so gentle that the winds would be jealous. He’s seen the way your bones move against each other. He says they move like rivers, when you think they move like tectonic plates. Your weak lungs try to expand and expand under fragile ribs, and you call yourself sick. But he always claims the only thing he can see are summer storms swirling inside of you. He says you are strong when you are weak. His eyes see parts of you you wish were real. If he was ever an artist - you would be his specialty.  _That's_ how carefully and deeply he looks at you.

He creates beauty where you’ve only seen weakness. His eyes are so great that you hate the gods for not banishing him into the darkness of space and naming him a constellation. His eyes paint gold onto parts of you that have rusted over – he looks at you and you feel beautiful.

“Steve,” he says.

And sometimes, this is all he says. Just your name. And you shake inside. Those summer storms he called your lungs, they shake you. Sometimes he says only your name but you can feel decades of emotions claw up your throat.

“What Buck?”

He nuzzles into Steve’s hand.

“You stopped.”

 _I wish I could._ You want to say.

 

* * *

 

 “You know, I thought I lost you.”

“All I could remember was your face – your voice.” Bucky pauses. Steve can feel him watching carefully. He pretends to be interested in the city below them. His skin flushes softly under the glare - he hopes the darkness hides it.

“Were you scared? When you fell?”

“Yes. But not of dying.”

Steve turns from the window and Bucky isn’t watching him anymore. It’s like he’s playing a careful game – waiting and moving at the right times.

“What were you afraid of?”

“Leaving you.”

 

* * *

 

“Bucky, stop glaring.”

“I’m not glaring.”

Steve gets into Bucky’s train of vision, getting his attention. “You’re glaring. What’s wrong with you?”

“That girl – I don’t like her.”

Bucky wanted to leave the tower, a recommendation from Dr. Garnett. To ease his sudden anxiety that came with open spaces and faces he didn’t know. He’d wanted to continue the sessions with the Doctor for this reason. He wanted to be _better._ For Steve. (His stubbornness seems to be the only thing that is unforgettable, because even after Steve _insists_ that he doesn’t care if Bucky isn’t the same, the man doesn’t listen. He wants to be _better. For Steve.)_

They chose a coffee shop – Steve’s favorite. The atmosphere was quiet and the people often minded their own. Everything had gone considerably well, except for the fact that after they ordered their coffee, Bucky continued to glare at the girl at the counter.

Evelyn – Steve’s favorite barista. He had a feeling she knew who he really was, but she politely acted as she didn’t. He appreciated that, even if she blushed and batted her eyes any chance she got.

For once, Steve actually _wanted_ Bucky to be looking at him intensely.

“Buck. What could Evelyn have possibly done to you? She is a nice girl.”

Bucky frowns, angrily stirring his coffee. “My coffee tastes weird.” he supplies.

“You haven’t even taken a sip yet.”

Bucky pauses, and then continues stirring. “Well, then it _smells_ weird.”

“Buck, that doesn’t even make sense.”

The man looks at him with the same pout on. He takes a _tiny_ sip of the coffee before sticking out his tongue. “Bleh. I don’t like it.”

Steve scoffs, taking a large gulp of his own drink. “Next time, we’re going to the library or something.”

Bucky watches him drink his coffee, eyes darting from the rim of his cup to his eyes. “I’m just saying she shoulda spend less time flapping her eyes at you and more time on my coffee.” He grumbles quietly.

“Hey, girls are allowed to look at _me_ too y’know.”

“Yea? Well they can keep their eyeballs to themselves. I can do it for them.”

Steve blushes – he can feel it on the tips of his ears – slowly creeping up his neck.

He looks down to read the newspaper and feels Bucky watch him the entire time.

 

* * *

 

They go to the library after that.

Bucky doesn't like the librarian either.

 

* * *

 

“He likes to watch you. Have you noticed that?”

Steve chokes on his water, it drips down the side of his chin.

Sam and him were running again, both agreeing it would help release the pent up tension from the suddenly silent Hydra. They’d had just finished running miles, and were walking back to the tower. Sam – Sam likes to shove Steve’s face into things he likes to avoid thinking about. It’s a friendly gesture though, bringing up topics he would probably ignore as long as he could.

This – was infact one of them.

“I uh – what?”

“Bucky – he like, watches you man. There’s no way you haven’t noticed, because _I_ noticed yesterday while I was eating your cereal. You’re out of honey nut cheerios by the way.”

He lets out a sigh. “I thought maybe I was imagining it.”

Sam hums. “So you have noticed.”

He shrugs. “Kind of hard to miss.”

They stop at a stoplight, a few cars sweeping across asphalt streets, the soft hum of metal slicing through morning air is calming.

“And?” Sam is looking at him expectedly. 

Steve gives him a look. “And what?”

“Are you going to do something about it?”

Steve looks at the man, who’s brows are raised in question. “Well, what do you suppose I do? Tell him to stop?”

“How about admitting you actually _enjoy_ it?”

At that, he immediately blushes. The little white man on the light appears and he starts walking, Sam quickly appearing next to him.

“Steve _.”_

 “ _Sam_.”

 “Admit it, you have feelings for him.”

Steve stops and faces him, furrowing his brows. “I don’t.”

The man raises his hands, palm outwards. “Hey – man. Cap, I’m your friend. Not some homophobic norm in the ‘20’s. It's okay. I've said this before.”

Steve sighs again. “Sorry.” He turns to start walking but stops again – turning back around to face Sam. “It’s just – I _just_ got him back, Sam. And I don’t want to do anything that might spook him off.”

Admitting it aloud, sends shock waves through him.

The man puts a gentle hand on Steve’s shoulder, squeezing. “Hey, you ever wonder _why_ he looks at you all the time?”

Steve looks up from the ground, frowning.

Sam smiles, his grin and his eyes both soft and warm.

“Maybe because he just got _you_ back and he’s afraid of losing _you_ too.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writers block is a serious condition. I am dying of it. So sorry :(


	18. cemented in paper and graphite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wonders why he's been running from something that isn't really chasing him.

 

When Bucky has something to think about, he avoids Steve for hours on end. It’s something he didn’t previously do but now does on every occasion he has something on his mind. And it never necessarily means something bad – sometimes Bucky just likes time to himself to think. It was a positive recommendation from the Doctor – take some alone time now and then to adjust to things.

Of course it bothers Steve to no end, placing transparent doubts in his head. Because before, when Bucky ever left, he always told Steve where he was going. This time, it’s different, he just disappears randomly, Jarvis being the one to tell him.

Steve can’t help but panic every time the man disappears. Mainly because he’s afraid the brunette will slip away and never come back. It’s irrational to think this way, he knows that, but losing Bucky once was scary enough for him.

Having him here, now, it feels like a second chance he doesn’t deserve but greedily takes anyways.

Steve never changes of course, he worries in the back of his head. Afraid – maybe, of the revelations drifting into Bucky’s mind. Afraid sometimes _for_ Bucky, afraid of the demons and ghosts caged in his skeleton. Afraid – Steve is always afraid now, it seems, afraid Hydra will break through the windows and take away his world. Terrified they somehow manage to brainwash Bucky again. Afraid that Bucky will come back to Hydra if they order him too. Afraid he will leave. Afraid he won’t. And Steve wishes the serum pumped courage inside his blood too, because there isn’t enough of it to sustain sanity.

Bucky avoids Steve for hours, the apartment barren even though it has already started smelling like _them_ again.

Bucky is asking for space so Steve occupies himself the best he can, resisting any little urges to ask Jarvis where the man is. Clint helps a lot – he teaches Steve how to play Mario Kart, which Steve is no good at (Clint keeps throwing these little turtle shells at him). They try out another game – Just Dance, which  Steve is also embarrassingly horrible at (Clint can move his hips in .. strangely mesmerizing ways).

After that, Steve finds Bruce and they both engage in a session of yoga that he is way too high strung for. The yoga helps but Bruce too quickly returns to his strange experiments, politely leaving Steve. Being alone is no good, he can’t find anything to draw and Bucky has grounded him from the gym (he apparently spent abnormal amounts of time in there).

Natasha was gone from the tower, digging up intel on Hydra somewhere.

Sam was at work.

Steve had no one.

No one except Tony.

 

* * *

 

“How can I help you capsicle? Need help working the toaster? I know technology can be confusing for geriatrics like you. Or maybe a new shirt? Not that I don’t like the whole – grandpa fashion thing going on.”  Tony doesn’t look up from the iron man suit, Steve assumes he is upgrading it. Occasional sparks fly out and he wonders if the man should be wearing a face mask or something.

“No, I didn’t know you were busy, sorry.” Steve turns to leave but there's a clatter sound.

“Hey, who said I was busy.” He turns to see Tony standing up, stretching. “I could use a break anyways. Come on.”

Steve hesitantly nods, lips thinning. Tony leads him to a room connected to the lab, where the smell of coffee wafts in the air. The room has two sofas, a table, a wet bar, and a coffee section. One sofa has a slight indent and a blanket draped over the side, he easily assumes that Tony crashes here on late nights. Said man hands Steve a cup of coffee which he accepts gratefully.

They sit on opposite couches, Tony watching him with amusement. The coffee tastes sweet, but it isn't as good as Bucky's.

Tony settles on the couch and blows on his cup. “ _So_ what’s with the puppy eyes? Did you have your first lover’s quarrel?”

Steve sputters on the coffee, clearing his throat. “Tony.”

 “ _What?”_

“Bucky and I _aren’t_.. aren’t that.”

Tony looks unamused now, sipping on his coffee even though it’s too hot. He sticks out his tongue and sips on it again, as if hoping it would’ve cooled down in the two seconds he’s blown on it. “Can I ask you a question?”

He knows Tony will ask anyways, so he shrugs.

“What were you thinking when that plane hit the ocean?”

The question surprisingly doesn’t startle him – he’s in fact been asked it before, by a shield therapist. He hadn’t answered then, the circumstances were different. Partly, he wonders why Tony decides to choose this as their conversation topic, but the man always has his reasons.

He looks in the cup of his coffee, as if it can show him an answer.

The answer is in his head, of course. And he knows it.

“Things changed after they named me Captain America. I was given a set of values and was expected to uphold them. I was expected to essentially _be_ the American ideal.”

Tony hums, nodding slowly.

“Most of those things I had already believed in anyways. But there were some things didn't. Of course, I didn't tell anyone. I played my part.” He places the coffee cup on the table, not confident he won’t drop it. “But when I was in the pilot seat of that plane, all I could think about was if Bucky had been this afraid. All I could think of was if Bucky had felt this alone.”

Calculating. That would be the best way to describe the look in Tony’s eyes. And Steve starts too feel too vulnerable – as if he’s said too much.

“You chose.” Tony says patiently. His face doesn't change. "You chose to die."

Also surprisingly, Steve doesn’t flinch. He should probably be profusely denying the accusation – but the thing is, it’s not an accusation. “I’m assuming that that isn’t included in the values expected of Captain America. It was selfish of me to do that. But I wanted –“

A hand rests on his shoulder and he wonders when Tony even left his seat.

“You wanted to be with him.”

Steve stays silent.

 

* * *

 

Steve was always suppose to go first. It was always suppose to end that way. Steve was to die first and Bucky was suppose to move on - live his life without having to worry about him. 

He never expected to be the one watching Bucky’s casket disappear in a hole in the ground.

Steve was _suppose_ to go first.

When that plane was nose diving into the arctic, the only thing he could think was –

_This will make it right. There’s no Steve without Bucky._

_No smoke without fire._

 

* * *

 

“What are you afraid of now?”

He looks up from his hands – they aren’t cold and covered in icy ocean water. They’re warm and sticky from spilled coffee. Tony has a concerned look on his face.

“I’m afraid of a lot of things.”

"Yea? Like what?"

Steve stays silent, hoping Tony dissects him himself to find the answers. 

Surprisingly, he does.

“Are you afraid of loving him again?”

At that, Steve does startle. He looks up at Tony with wide eyes, but this time, he takes a second to really wonder _why_ he's startled. _Why_ he's afraid that Tony knows when he obviously doesn't care - doesn't judge. He wonders why he's been running from something that isn't really  _chasing_ him. He can only wonder how transparent he has become for not only one, but two of his friends to see his heart. He wonders when Tony became so perceptive, or when _he_ became so obvious.

“I’m afraid of him finding out, I guess.”

Tony sits up and makes a startled sound. It sounds like a whine but he quickly covers it with an enthusiastic cough. Steve looks over to see a guilt-ridden expression on the man’s face. The man puckers his lips and inhales. “Okay, so don’t be mad but I _kinda_ -“

At that moment, Jarvis interrupts them, his voice politely addressing Steve.

“Pardon me Captain, but Sergeant Barnes is asking for you.”

Steve stands up at that– shamefully eager. He clears his throat, nodding. “Okay. Uh - tell him I’m on my way.” He looks at Tony to see the man quickly stand as well, his eyes wider than usual.

“Well alrighty then – I’ll just uh, yea. Go now.”  He leaves for the door but then turns around to say one last thing. “Oh and if there is any reason you might be angry with me in the near future, I will be conveniently out of the country, okay bye.”

The man slips out of the room, leaving Steve wondering.

 

* * *

 

He finds Bucky in their ( _their)_ living room, standing by the wall, which is set to the window setting. The expanse of New York is bright before them, Bucky watching it casually. He looks breathtaking framed by skyscrapers and city lights. There’s a large postal box by his feet, Steve ignores it and walks over to the other side of the man.

Bucky doesn’t turn to face him, but his face is neutral and his posture isn’t rigid. Steve can only assume the best.

“So what have you been up to? Missed you today.”

 Bucky rocks back on the balls of his feet, arms behind his back. “Looked through some art.”

Steve frowns slightly, “Art?”

The brunette hums, eyes drifting along the buildings in front of them. “Some kid from back in the day. I asked Tony to get them for me.”

The mention of Tony makes Steve a little more unsettled. He looks over at the box on the other side of  Bucky’s feet. “Who’s the artist?”

Bucky shrugs, his head motioning towards the box. “Have a look yourself. It’s beautiful work. I’m gonna go mess with Clint. I'll be back for dinner.” With that, the man leaves the room, the elevator sliding closed softly. Steve feels disappointed that Bucky left so quickly, but his curiosity is quickly piqued by the box. 

He lets out a sigh before slowly sitting in front of the box. Jarvis politely raises the lighting of the room and switches the walls back to normal.

He opens the box to find it full of leather books – most of them are old and worn down. Bucky had been looking through books all day? Steve runs his hands over some of them. The edges are torn, most are barely handing on to the spine. He picks one up and holds it. It’s funny because he had the same sketchbook as this one. The leather and the gold colored thread on the edges are the same.

He frowns for a second, looking back in the box.

It’s funny – _that_ book also looks familiar. And that one – and _that_ one.

He quickly opens the book in his hands and –

And a sixteen year old Bucky in suspenders and jeans stares back at him. There’s a cut on his cheek and dirt on his chin.His eyes are black and white but Steve can remember how bright they held the sun that afternoon. He was beautiful - even under Steve's messily rushed sketch.

Steve frantically flips through the pages – a cold feeling drowning his chest.

He flips through every page - and - and all of them have Bucky in one way or another.

Panic floods through his body as he flips them all open, one by one.

Not all of the books are here – but there are a lot. And all of them have Bucky in them. Sometimes in pencil, sometimes in charcoal. Some pages are dotted with rain, some smell of scotch. A man cemented in paper and graphite.

He slumps back against the wall with a thud, surrounded by dozens of haphazardly opened sketchbooks. He lets out a whimper, a sigh. His heart is maybe pumping faster than it should and he partly wants to curl up into a ball and never leave again. He could only imagine what Bucky must think after spending an entire day looking through books of _him_ in dozens of places during different times.

Steve starts to curl up into the ball before a yellow piece of paper catches his eye.

It’s a sticky note – _Jesus He left notes in them?_ Steve quickly crawls to grab the book, taking out the note to read it.

It’s in Bucky’s messy handwriting, faint marks of erased words in the background.

 

* * *

 

_stevie,_

 

_if you wanted to draw me so bad, all ya had to do was ask. next time, let me know and I can pose for ya._

 

_~~your model,~~  your favorite model,_

_buck._

 

 _P.S. if you fucki_ _ng throw these away i’ll kill you._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am still suffering from writer's block. It is serious and chronic. Leave me nice words and Ill love you


	19. he’s everything you’ve craved for

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was hauntingly beautiful. You were afraid of dreaming about his skin, dreaming about the masterpiece of his bones. You were afraid of dreaming about something so terrifyingly perfect. He was so haunting you felt like a grave – he a ghost craving for slumber inside of you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter probably sucks because I've been so busy and I just wrote this today and I haven't proofread it. So sorry for my horrid writers block. Hopefully it isn't too bad. See you soon. :)

He took you to the beach one day, saying he’d been saving up for a vacation. Saving up meaning working his limbs like they were meant to slave instead of touching the sky. There were cuts on the top of his fingers that looked like broken glass had touched them. When you ran your thumb across his overworked knuckles, he only took your hand and kissed it, saying ‘don’t worry about it’. That day, you followed him into the cold water that swallowed up your paleness – and even when your heels left the sand you still followed him. You felt like a shipwreck under such a hungry ocean, but he held you like some treasure he spent lifetimes looking for.

When you could go no further – when the salty arms of the ocean climbed up to your neck you weren’t afraid. You were never afraid when he was next to you. His eyes were impossibly pulling, as if he were the one shifting the waves, as if he had pieces of he moon under his lashes. You remember his heartbeat, feeling it under the water against your ribs. Every beat like it was racing the waves colliding against you. His forehead pressed against yours, you opened your mouth to taste salt water drifting into your lips. How much you wanted to kiss him. How much you wanted to taste him.

He was hauntingly beautiful. You were afraid of dreaming about his skin, dreaming about the masterpiece of his bones. You were afraid of dreaming about something so terrifyingly perfect. He was so haunting you felt like a grave – he a ghost craving for slumber inside of you.

He stood in front of the horizon that day, the dying sun still trying its best to wrap itself around him. A man so important you couldn’t imagine the skyline without him pressed against it.

 

* * *

 

Nights after he left to go fight a war for you, you swallowed pinches of salt just so you could remember the taste of the ocean on his skin.

Nights after he fell into a ravine dying for you, you spent your nights trying to sleep just so you could feel his beauty haunt you again.

Nights after he comes back choosing to live for you, you lay restless, hoping he never leaves again.

 

* * *

 

It’s Steve’s turn to watch Bucky. A week passes and there isn’t even a single mention of the cardboard box full of lost (and found) memories. The said box is neatly seated by the bookshelf in the living room. At first they both ignored it – neither bringing it up but both obviously conscious of it’s presence.

And then a day later, Bucky comes back to the apartment and says he’s bored. Steve tells him to entertain himself and the man – he grabs a _sketchbook._ He sits on the couch and casually _looks_ through – just looks through it like it’s some sort of book.

After that, the man continues to pick up a book, a new one if he finishes examining an old one. Examining the careful strokes, the rushes strokes. The changing anatomy of a changing boy. Some lines are rough and some are gentle, some are dark and some are light. Bucky only examines – never touches, as if afraid to smudge a masterpiece. He looks and Steve is afraid of everything he will find. Afraid of anything he will find. They are everything he wanted Bucky to know but was too afraid to tell. Every confession he swallowed down, bled onto those pages.

Those books were everything he wanted to say. Every urge he buried in his cemetery heart. Every fear and every blessing. Everything he needed to say but knew no words to explain.

Everything. And yet Bucky looks through them like a flower yearning for the touch of the sun. He looks through them so carefully and it’s everything Steve has ever wanted but feared.

It’s like the man is taunting Steve. _Daring_ him to say something. He just sits there, cross legged, when he has nothing else to do, and just opens a book and looks through it. Like it isn’t some creepy collection of drawings of him. If he has something else to do, he places the book down, dog-earring the page as if it was a regular novel.

One time Steve attempts to put away the box and Bucky catches him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” The man crosses his arms and eyes Steve – glares at him.

Steve stammers and flushes, the box in his hand, feeling like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar.

“I – I, Buck, these are-“

The man just walks forward and snatches the box away, placing it back against the wall. “These are _mine_ now, Stevie.” He then grabs a book and casually takes it to his appointment with the doctor.

After that day Steve hadn’t even attempted to approach the box.

 

* * *

It continues for days. 

Bucky reads and Steve goes insane.

 

* * *

 

When he finally loses it – it seems Bucky is prepared for it.

Bucky is sitting at the dining table, an elbow propping up his face, his other hand flipping through a sketchbook. Steve is looking through some papers and Bucky says something to break the silence.

“Huh.” His fingers flip through another page.

 _Huh._ He says. _Huh._ As if he is amused by whatever is on the drawing.

Steve loses it.

He pushes his chair back, marches his way over to Bucky and snatches the book out of his hand.

“Enough, Buck.”

The man looks up at Steve with furrowed brows. “What the fuck, Steve?” He reaches for it but Steve closes it and tosses it behind him – it clatters against something he doesn’t care about.

“ _Enough._ Buck.”

Bucky stands, his chair scraping against the floor. “What the hell are you talking about?”

He scoffs. “What am I talking about? _What am I talking about?_ I’m talking about you making fun of me every damn day with these books. I'm talking about you taunting me by looking through these stupid pages. Look –“ He lets out a frustrated sigh. “I get it. I was a freak, okay? What do you want me to do? Apologize?” Bucky looks incredulous, Steve can see the way he swallows nervously. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry okay? I’m sorry for all those times I – I’m sorry for everything.”

The words are lost in your mind. You want to apologize – apologize for everything. For the day you skinned your knee at eleven years old and he had to carry you on his back all the way home. For the time you told him you loved him so much when he was drunk out of his mind. For the winter you were sick for weeks on end and he had to watch you die. For the month he had to work double shifts because you were out of medication. For the war he died in and you lived for. For the drawings in his hands. For the drawings lost under this earth. For the words in your heart. For visiting his grave when he wasn’t in it. For not catching him. For ever wanting to taste the salty ocean on his lips. For ever doubting him.

“I wasn’t making fun of you.”

Bucky looks up at Steve with something strange in his eyes. They’re close and he now realizes this. His heart pounds so fast – it feels like the first time he ever drew Bucky. Panicked but _alive._ He feels small but somehow big – Bucky always made room for him to exist.

“Steve..”

He doesn’t reply.

Doesn’t trust the recipe of words threatening to spill out of his teeth.

“Stevie..” The nickname feels like liquid lightning swimming through him.

The man before you – he’s everything you’ve craved for. And it’s impossible, you can’t crave something you’e never tasted. You can’t long for something you’ve never had. But he’s like the few seconds before the rain hits the earth. The feeling of knowing what is coming and having no will to stop it. He’s everything you’ve ever craved for, _starved_ for.  You’ve emptied out every bullet in your chest but somehow you’re still afraid of hurting him. Afraid he will find something inside of you he doesn’t want. Empty bullet shells – fragments of a grenade – remnants of a war he died for.

“Did you love me?”

Tears. He starts to cry. And the trail of salt dips between his lips and suddenly he’s remembering Bucky in the middle of the ocean, salt water lapping at their necks. He remembers the cold water but the infinitely warm Bucky. The beating of both their hearts – the rush of the waves against two Brooklyn boys.

You remember everything you wanted to say to him.

Everything you wanted to do to him.

“Yes. More than anything.”

Bucky is crying too, now. Steve wonders if he is tasting the same memory.

“And – And do you still now?”

Steve leans forward and kisses Bucky on the right  brow, one hand cupping the man’s neck. He pulls back, tears streaming down his cheek.

“Yes. More than everything.”

Bucky's eyes are bright, glossed, just like that day. The sun isn't here to greedily wrap itself around him, and there is no hungry ocean waiting to swallow two fearless boys. But everything feels so heavy, so familiar.

The man smiles, tears rolling down his chin.

"Finally," he says.

 

* * *

 

Nights after you tell him you love him, you never fear he will leave you again.


	20. skin like a canvas, hands of an artist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’re playing roles of two boys who were unafraid of anything – Steve can’t help but wonder if Bucky knew he loved him back then too.

“I’m not the same person. You know that right?”

They’re on the balcony of their apartment, both agreeing to some air. There's no whining fire escape, the city lights are ravenous, and the man against the ledge has changed. But somehow, it feels the same. Just them two standing against an insatiable city. Always small, but somehow always enough. Sometimes even more than that.

You’ve never felt invincible before. Not when firestorms erupted in your lungs every winter and he held your heart in his palms, teaching you how to breathe again. Not when his arms held you like you were the sun and he was the moon, slowly eclipsing you. Not even when your veins were pumped full of chemistry, when your bones turned to titanium and unbreakable. Not when you lost him but still survived the next day. You’ve never felt invincible.

But now – now when a war and decades have burrowed into your skin. Now that you have the man of your life standing in front of you – you feel impossibly invincible. Like his presence, like the tears still drying on his cheeks mean something more to you. Like the fact that he hasn’t left you after your heart spilled out in tangled words is reassuring.

“I’m not either.”

Bucky doesn’t move from his place. Two arms holding the ledge, his hair tied in the back. The city is a frame around his body but somehow he makes it look like his kingdom. “You read my file.”

He hums. “I did.”

“You know what I’ve done.”

Somewhere in the distance, a police siren rings.

“I know what they made you do.”

Bucky’s hands grip the ledge tighter. His knuckles go white under the pressure. “My hands.”

Steve walks over to the edge, staring out at the dark sky, the hidden moon. “If hydra took me-“

The man beside him tightens, he turns quickly to Steve.  “Hydra will _never_ take you. I won’t let them touch you. I will never let them touch you.”

He looks down at his hands. “Yea, I know Buck. But if I was the one – the one they made do those things. Would you blame me?”

The silence is immediate. It’s a childish strategy and he knows it doesn’t work that way, but he says it anyways. It’s unfair to put Bucky in this position but there’s no other way to describe how helpless he feels.

“They did things to me.”

Steve wants to say he knows, but it isn’t enough. It’s never enough. He’s trying to understand why Bucky is saying these things to him. Why he’s trying to persuade Steve to look the other way when all he’s ever done is look at Bucky.

“Bucky-“

“I’m not-“ He snaps but then stops, letting out a sigh. “I’m not him. I’m not the same man in those pictures you keep in the back of your wallet. I’m not the man in those sketchbooks. But hell, Steve I want to be. I want to be him so damn much. For _you.”_ Bucky is frustrated but he won’t look Steve in the eye. “I remember who I was back then – but then I close my eyes and all I see are the things I’ve done as the winter soldier. I can’t. But I try.”

“Buck, I told you before. You don’t have to change any part of you. You’re everything I need right now.”

Bucky shakes his head, his voice soft. “But I’m not what you want.” What he says next is so incredibly soft. “I’m not who you love. Not anymore.”

Steve swallows the lump in his throat and gathers whatever courage there is left tucked under his ribs. “Yea? Well that’s for me to decide.”

The brunette looks up at him then, a spark of surprise on his face. Lights from the city reflect off the glassiness in his eyes, he’s beautiful in every way. Cream skin and perfect edges. Steve feels so undeserving but so greedy at the same time. Because Bucky is sunlight creeping on his skin on cold nights. He’s feeling warmth after being lost in an endless cycle of winters.

He’s salvation.

 

* * *

 

Bucky agrees to stop looking through the sketchbooks only if Steve draws him.

He’s reluctant to agree at first because the last time he drew Bucky, he had a nervous breakdown and broke everything around him. Because he had been trying to draw out of memory and he had never done that before. But there was no Bucky because _he_ couldn’t catch him falling out of that train.

And it’s irrational because Bucky is here now, and immortalizing him in paper doesn’t mean he will fall out of a train tomorrow.

Still, he says no.

 

* * *

 

Bucky threatens to show the books to the others and Steve calls him on his bluff.

When he finds Clint and Tony in their apartment that afternoon, he nearly has a panic attack.

He throws the both of them out and tells Bucky _fine, I’ll draw you._

 

* * *

 

“Well?”

Steve bites his lip. Bucky is sitting in a chair in the studio, his hair let down in brown waves. His eyes are pale green and Steve can actually _draw_ that color because he has every shade of every color now.

“I – I never drew you posing. It was always – y’know. Natural.”

Bucky frowns before leaning back in the chair and pulling out a tablet. “Fine. I’ll play with this and ‘act natural’.” The man taps a few times on the tablet and then the sound of some show on netflix fills the room.

Steve lets out a sigh before taking out the materials and setting them on the table. He looks over at Bucky, who is seemingly absorbed in the show on the tablet. The man looks good in the light, sharp shadows and smooth skin. The bow of his lips, the edge of his cheekbones, the light stubble on his chin – Steve already knows how far gone he is.

The moment his pencil scratches against the paper, he knows just how far.

He was always your favorite work of art. He was a man of forgiveness. You never asked for it but he would always give it. His skin was always smooth like a canvas, and you had hands of an artist. Sometimes you were scared to touch him, because he called everything you ever touched beautiful. You didn’t want him to think he was beautiful only after you touched him. Because that was never true.

He’s seen you rip apart pieces of art you thought were ugly. You didn’t want him to think you’d do the same to him if you ever touched him. Because he was your favorite work of art – your favorite mosaic of sharp bones and tough muscles and moonlit skin. You were scared to touch him because he was a man of forgiveness. If you were ever to hurt him – he would give. Because you had hands of an artist and he said everything you touched was beautiful.

 

* * *

 

“Done?”

Steve blinks twice, looking up at Bucky, who has finally noticed that the scratching of the pencil has stopped. He clears his throat and looks back down at the paper in front of him.

“Y-yeah.”

The brunette stands from his chair and walks over reaching for the paper. Automatically, Steve is laying his body protectively over it, suddenly afraid of everything. Afraid Bucky will hate it – will think he is a creep for putting so much care into each stroke and each shading. The man frowns, brows knitting together.

“What are you doing Steve. Move.”

“N-no. It’s ugly.”

The man narrows his eyes. “You calling me ugly, punk?”

Steve leans up, splaying out his palms in front of him. “No! I just mean the drawing is ug- HEY!” Bucky grabs the paper from under him and runs out to the living room. Steve stumbles off his chair and chases after him, crashing through the studio door and into the living room.

He freezes when he sees the look on Bucky’s face.

It’s blank except that it’s not. His eyes are wide, his jaw slack. Steve is quick to approach, holding out his hands as if steadying an afraid animal.

“Look, Buck it’s not what you thin-“

The man whips his head at Steve and – and _smiles._ “Stevie, this is amazing.”

He stops where he is, amazed by how bright Bucky’s eyes are. “Really?”

Bucky smiles – and then he turns for the door.

“Where are you going, Buck?”

“To show the others how much you love to draw me.”

Steve immediately chases after the man, who is smirking and running away. They run – Bucky jumping over couches and around vases in order to get to the elevator, Steve desperately chasing without knocking things over. He’s shouting and Bucky’s laughing and it all feels so childish and familiar. And he can’t help but think that only a few days ago did he confess his love to the man he’s fallen for all of his life. They’re playing roles of two boys who were unafraid of anything – Steve can’t help but wonder if Bucky knew he loved him back then too.

 

* * *

 

Bucky chooses the stairs and they both are running through flights just to get to the penthouse.

When they finally get there it’s empty and they're both out of breath.

Bucky is about to surge for the elevator in one last attempt to escape but then – then it opens and Clint is walking out.

Steve feels fear for a second but then he realizes two things:

One, Clint is wearing his hawkeye uniform – and two, his eyes are the darkest Steve has ever seen.

Something is wrong. Steve feels his chest go cold, Clint seems so scared even if it only shows in his eyes. Bucky has noticed too, and is standing attentively, the drawing placed gently on the table beside him. Steve walks up to Clint, who is tightening a strap on his uniform. The man clears his throat and swallows.

“It’s Nat. She’s in trouble.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am unforgivably late. I know this. I am sorry. I've run into some things that have prevented me from writing. So so so sorry!!!


	21. passed, but refused to be forgotten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They come in a pair – they’ve always come in a pair. It’s always been like this, they don’t know any other way. It’s against the way their cells are shaped, it’s against the way their skeletons are carved. If there is one, there is the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back and I'm late and I'm sorry! Running through a rough patch currently, but I promise I won't abandon! The updates may be a little slow. I understand if you may want to come back and read when it's fully complete! Regardless, much to love to everyone.

“How long ­­­has it been?”

Steve looks over at Bruce, who seems calm, his gentle fingers held against his chin. They’re all in the conference room, the uneasiness of a team member missing is apparent.

Tony walks to the front of the table, his hands touching screens on his tablet. Jarvis pulls up a  holographic map in the center of the table and they all gather, none calm enough to sit down. Tony hums a few times, his hair disheveled – oil marks on his chin. His face is blank but his eyes are carefully avoiding the empty spot at the table.

Clint clears his throat, his eyes boring into the holographic map. “A week. But two days since she’s gone silent. Her tracker was shut off recently.”

Tony swipes the map across to show blips of light – places where Natasha last checked in. The final light glows red to show where her tracker shut off. Tony clears his throat. “I designed the tracker to show if anyone beside one of us turned it off. The flag went off around this area.” A large grid appears, bordering off an area on the map.

Bruce steps up closer to the table, his glasses pushed up on the bridge of his nose. He looks closely at the map, switching it to a satellite view.

Steve frowns – the area on the screen is blank. “There’s nothing there.”

Tony scoffs. “Exactly.” The brunette looks up at Bucky, who has been standing idly beside Steve, silent. “Well, tell us what you see Hydrapedia.”

For a moment, he wants to argue that they don’t know what happen to Nat, that it didn’t mean this was Hydra. But then Bucky speaks up, his voice robotic and sharp.

“There use to be  headquarters there. It was shut down.” Bucky remains still and Steve can only imagine what is going through his head.

Clint doesn’t look up from his glare on the red blip on the map. He shakes his head after a few beats. “It’s too easy. They know you’re here, they know you’d tell us that.”

Bucky nods next to him. “You’re right. It could be a trap.”

Steve furrows his brows, both palms splayed on the table. “What do they want?”

There is a silence in the room, one that isn’t from not knowing the answer. He feels a coldness inside his chest begin to rise. Partly because Natasha is made of rainwater and venom, she wouldn’t have been easy to apprehend, even if by a team of hydra agents. She must have been caught off guard, otherwise no one would have been able to come close.

They took her because it is the perfect chess move. The perfect pawn for the perfect trade.

“Steve.”

His body tightens at the hollowness of Bucky’s voice. He’ll never get use to the winter and steel – the mode of Bucky’s voice that is void of any emotion. He hates it because Bucky’s voice used to be made of warmth and honey. He looks up to see Bucky looking straight at him. There is not fear in his pale green eyes – only determination. Almost like he knows what must be done, what his duty is.

“They want me.”

 

* * *

 

“I just called Jane. Thor is on his way.”

Steve nods at Bruce, before turning to face Bucky. His mind is a mess, thoughts of a leader and thoughts of a lover clash messily in his skull. Logic flows in only to be refuted by the pounding of his heart. He swallows, clearing his throat.

“You’re not going.”

Bucky turns and has flames in his eyes, the young, stubborn soldier inside of him is stark on his complexion. Steve can remember slices of history, during the war. Slices of their lives that have passed but refuse to be forgotten. Him commanding Bucky to do something and getting a stubborn refusal in return. It aches inside of him, to be replaying scenes of their lives that have long burned into ash and dissipated into nothingness. Periods of their life that scratch under his skin whenever he looks at Bucky.

“The hell I’m not.”

Steve turns around and stands his ground, hoping the fear in his heart isn’t bleeding through his eyes. He doesn’t want Bucky to go because the word ‘martyr’ is selectively scrawled on the man’s heart. He think he’s responsible because this is about Hydra but Steve wants to scream that Bucky _isn’t_ Hydra. He never was and he never will be.

“I’m telling you you’re not going.” He can feel everyone’s eyes on him but he doesn’t care because Bucky’s glare is enough to spark wildfires inside his chest. He tries his best to sound serious but there’s nothing that will stop a Bucky who wants to protect Steve.

They come in a pair – they’ve always come in a pair. It’s always been like this, they don’t know any other way. It’s against the way their cells are shaped, it’s against the way their skeletons are carved. If there is one, there is the other.

“I’m not an avenger and you aren’t my captain anymore.”

Steve wants to argue but then Jarvis is cutting them both off.

“Sir, there is an incoming transmission. I cannot track it in time and it is bouncing off several dozen servers globally. It is impossible to intercept in a timely manner.”

Tony looks unamused, but gives Steve a serious glare. He nods at the man and then they are all turning towards the screen. Steve can feel his heart skipping beats when Tony says “Accept the call.”

The screen is black at first, it flickers a couple of times but then colors are pouring into pixels. The other end is silent until the camera focuses on two figures. The first Steve automatically can tell is Natasha. She is bound to a metal chair that is bolted against the wall. Her neck, wrists, arms, ankles, legs, and waist are all secured (at least they know better). Her head is lolled to the side, red flames messy around her face. She is unconscious, a line of dried blood on her head and cheek.

Steve can see Clint tense.

The background reveals nothing except that it might be some warehouse somewhere.

The other figure, a man, is standing beside her, his hands behind his back. The video quality isn’t perfect, but Steve can make out dark hair slicked backwards, a pair of black glasses, and a sunken in expression.

The man smiles.

 “My my, quite the audience I have. Almost all of the avengers. Where is our Asgardian addition?”

Steve straightens, pulling the attention to him. “Who are you?”

The man makes no change in his expression, he only smiles. “We have little time for formalities, Captain Rogers.”

He furrows his brow. “ _Who_ are you.” It isn’t a question, more like a command.

The man with the glasses just grins wider. Steve wants to punch out every tooth. “I am the next head. Cut off one-“

Steve grips the edge of the table. “Two more grow. What do you want?”

The silence in the room is tense – he can almost feel Clint holding back his tongue and his rage. Bruce is watching silently, his eyes constantly on Natasha’s unconscious figure. Bucky is staring at the man on the screen, but there is no emotion, no recognition in his eyes.

This is a new head – for a split second he can only wonder how many leaders they have lined up. How many leaders there are to replace ones that they have destroyed.

There is a low chuckle. “Oh Captain, I’m very aware you know what we want.” The man rocks on his feet. “We want the asset.”

The table where his hand grips cracks. If anyone notices, they don’t show it.

“You can’t have _him._ He’s not your tool.” _Not anymore._ The anger inside of him swells like consuming fires.

The man in the screen laughs louder, the sounds stirring Natasha awake. He seems to notice, smiling at the camera. “You have been sent coordinates. Bring the asset, we will release the widow. Return what is ours, no wars need to be started. You have three hours.”

“And if we don’t make it in three hours?”

The man’s expression doesn’t even shift. He just tilts his head slightly and grins with that sinister grin. “Well, then I suppose the widow will be no more.”

And with that, the screen blanks again.

 

* * *

 

“They hurt her. They HURT HER!” Clint’s facade shatters as the screen darkens, he is already barreling for the door, his eyes washed with rage, two snow white fists tucked by his sides. Steve rushes towards the door after Clint.

“Clint stop-“

The smaller man halts and gestures wildly at the blank screen, he shows more emotion than Steve has ever seen. “They hurt her. We have to go _now,_ Cap.”

“We don’t know what we’re up against.” Clint shakes his head, biting his lower lip. It is alarming to see Clint not cool and collected. Reckless decisions and unfocused actions are not what they need at the moment.

“She was unconscious!”

“No she wasn’t.”

Clint and Steve both turn around – at Bucky, who is still staring at the wall, his arms crossed. Before they can say anything, the brunette turns and faces the rest of them. Tony has his hands flying through walls of data, a map of the globe is up, arrows and numbers flying from point to point. He stops, though, when Bucky says that.

Bucky looks at Bruce, who nods slowly.

“Her fingers,” he says, sitting down on a chair. “her fingers were moving.”

Tony’s eyes widen, he clicks somewhere on his tablet a few times and then the screen is pulled up again, a recording of the transmission. His fingers gesture on the tablet and then the video is zoomed onto Natasha. He mutes the audio and sharpens the pixels.

Clint’s breath hitches in his throat so softly only Steve can hear it.

Natasha’s fingers are moving – with subtlety, it almost look like a glitch in the video quality. A look on Natasha’s face and it’s impossible to tell she’s unconscious. Her forefinger, though, it is moving with precision – almost like it is twitching. But they aren’t random gestures, they’re rigid movements – she’s drawing something. Tony clears his throat, his eyes are bright with something Steve can’t decipher.

“Jarvis, trace please,” he says, fist brought up to his lips.

“Certainly, sir.”

The video replays, but this time, red markings follow Natasha’s fingers, and then those markings are expanded on the screen. Large letters appear as her finger moves. The words that appear silence them all.

**TRAP. WANT. CAP.**

 


End file.
